If you first scoffed before immediately vomiting when the so-called "Ferguson Effect" narrative started to take hold, you’re not alone. On Monday’s The Daily Show, the increasingly throne-worthy Trevor Noah spent a good chunk of minutes debunking the fabrication, a dangerous fiction not unlike the equally preposterous "War on Cops" catchphrase that gained some traction earlier this year.
"People following them around with cameras, watching everything they do," Noah said of the impact of movements centered on filming police encounters and sharing them on social media. "[That leaves] police afraid to even get out of their cars for fear that someone might whip out a phone and brutally film them. Who can imagine how that must feel?"
Citing a recent study from the American Psychological Association that clarified that it's simply much too soon to assert the sort of broad theory at the center of this "Ferguson Effect," Noah nicely summarized the inherent problem with many police officers' continually baffling responses to society's growing aversion to police brutality: arrogance. "These are just facts," Noah said sternly. "They don’t count. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. The only thing that matters is how the police feel."
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