[bryans]

The police would prefer the statistics show a rise in violent crime, because that would quickly result in an increase of their funding, which they actively and publicly pursue constantly. So if it's propaganda, it's self-defeating propaganda, making it far more likely that you're experiencing paranoia based on mass hysteria, rather than a police department going massively out of their way to turn down millions of dollars.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The police simply count what they can - actual formal reports. They aren't lying because they aren't claiming that this fully describes the situation in the city.

The fact checkers, who I am accusing of being empty political bias machines, lie by pretending that "are the official crime statistics lower" is the question that residents and tourists need to know. Their headlines and conclusions don't match the questions they're asking and they're smarmy in their dismissals of disbelievers as politically motivated.

> if it's propaganda, it's self-defeating propaganda,

No, it's not the police who are propagandizing here. It's the "news" misusing the police data.

> making it far more likely that you're experiencing paranoia based on mass hysteria

Very tactile hallucinations.