Bill Bratton, current LAPD chief, and the man who cleaned up New Yorek (not Guiliani), is saying that the federal government is abandoning its commitment to fighting crime in the United States and diverting those resources to the “Total War Against Terror“^*.

“The federal government is a one-eyed Cyclops – it can only focus on one thing at a time,” said Mr Bratton, in an interview with the Financial Times. “We have to fight a two-front war on terrorism internationally and on crime at home. You cannot fight terrorism at the expense of 16,000 homicides a year.”

FWIW, that is 5 times the total deaths from 911.

He’s right.

^*Check out the acronym.