It is also worth noting, although the Journal tries to spin this as a bipartisan problem, that Democrats (including the “progressive” mayor of San Antonio who identifies as Independent) run seven of the top ten cities with the biggest jump in homicide rates. Democrats also run all six of the top six cities with the largest number of homicides, including Democrat-run Chicago, which the Journal notes is responsible for “more than one of every eight homicides.” The top six are Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Dallas.

The experts the Journal spoke with laid the blame on the closing of schools and churches, and the left’s anti-police crusade.

“Lockdowns and recession also mean tensions are running high and streets have been emptied of eyes and ears on their communities. Some attribute the rise to an increase in gang violence,” the Journal reports, adding…

Schools let out young adults in March because of the pandemic and after-school activities largely stopped. Churches and other social institutions were restrained for the sake of social distancing. Police first were hit by coronavirus and then blowback in the neighborhoods they patrol after the killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody.

“Gangs are built around structure and lack thereof,” said Jeff La Blue, a spokesman for the Fresno police department. “With schools being closed and a lot of different businesses being closed, the people that normally would have been involved in positive structures in their lives aren’t there.”

Obviously structure is imperative for young people, which is something schooling offers. As far as the Church, this is something especially vital in black and Hispanic communities, a place for troubled youth to go. Many churches also offer after-school activities, not to mention moral guidance.

“Everything that society does that might shape public safety was turned upside-down during the pandemic,” Mr. Ludwig told the Journal, and this of course includes an unprecedented and dishonest crusade by Democrats and the corporate media to delegitimize and defund the police.

The good news is that burglaries and rapes are down, but that’s only because people are staying home. There are fewer potential victims out there.

“Homicides, on the other hand, are up because violent criminals have been emboldened by the sidelining of police,” reports the Journal, and these homicides are “hitting low-income, mostly Black and Latino communities especially hard” — just as I (and everyone with a brain) predicted when this left-wing terrorism launched.

This attack on the police — even as police shootings of unarmed men (including black men) have plummeted over the years — was always about the 2020 presidential election, always about the left’s desperation to reverse the gains made by black America under President Trump’s economic policies.

And the fastest way to destroy economic advancement is to embolden and release violent criminals and gangs.

Although things are not yet as bad as they were before violent crime began to drop in the 1990s, that is a very cold comfort when you realize we are reversing all the law enforcement policies that finally put an end to a three decade crime wave and urban blight: aggressive policing tactics based on the broken windows philosophy, tough sentencing after a legal conviction, etc.

We’re also doing things even the do-gooders of the sixties didn’t think of — ending bail, using the China Virus as an excuse to empty our jails and prisons, electing far-left activists as city prosecutors, and turning the police into eunuchs. Unfortunately, and unless people wake up and put a stop to this madness, we are on the fast-track to a return to the bad old days of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Instead of tweaking our criminal justice system, which I’m always in favor of, especially when it comes with how to handle non-violent criminals, in just a matter of months, the left and their media allies have smashed it — and by deliberate design, blacks and Hispanics are the biggest losers.

Here are the top 14 cities with the biggest increase in homicides this year, along with the incumbent mayor’s party identification:

1. Austin – Democrat
2. Chicago – Democrat mayors for 79 years
3. Fort Worth – Republican
4. San Antonio – Self-identified “progressive” Independent after two decades of Democrat rule.
5. Phoenix – Democrat
6. Philadelphia – 68 years of Democrats
7. Houston – 38 years of Democrats
8. New York – Democrat
9. Columbus – Two decades of Democrat rule
10. Jacksonville – Republican
11. Los Angeles – Democrat for two decades
12. San Diego – Republican
13. Charlotte – Democrat
14. Dallas – Democrat

Editor’s Note:  Previously this story erroneously stated that the mayor of Phoenix is a Republican; current Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego is a Democrat. 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.