A startling rise in murders after years of declines,” warned the New York Times in an August 31 article claiming that murder rates were increasing in major US cities, including St Louis, Baltimore, and Washington DC. The findings in the article, which cited a 60 percent spike from last year in St Louis and a 76 percent jump in Milwaukee, were then picked up by other news outlets like the BBC and the Washington Post.

The timing of the article was perfect if the purpose was to divert public attention from the epidemic of racist police murders — which the Guardian puts at over eight hundred so far this year.

Attempting to explain the spike in crime, the Times article proposed what is being called the “Ferguson Effect“: the claim that police officers are hesitant to stop crime because they’re facing increased scrutiny — and in turn, people who commit crimes have become more confident to do so. The Times article also coincides with reports of a supposed spike in the killing of police officers, which some commentators blamed on the Black Lives Matter movement.