This past week, Tulsa's Mayor, Bill LaFortune, spoke at his "Mayor's Night In" meeting for neighborhood leaders. During the meeting he argued against the "panacea" of having more police officers because, as everyone knows:

"More police officers, means more arrests, means a higher crime rate." - Bill LaFortune

Unbelievable! Never mind the fact that the crime rate is wholly unrelated to arrests. I could possibly even give him the benefit of the doubt that he just slipped up on the statistical concept except for the fact that there is no excusing the basis of his argument, that more police officers could possibly lead to any negative consequence involving crime. What rational person, not pushing some agenda, thinks this way?

Here's the audio (0:03, 28KB, wma). In case you think Mayor LaFortune is being taken out of context, here's a four minute clip containing the quote made by Mayor LaFortune (3:55, 464KB, mp3). The pertinent discussion begins at 2:55 and culminates with the Mayor's words of wisdom at 3:15.

I took the time to photoshop Mayor LaFortune to (try to) appear as if he came from a comic book for the reason that, only from a comic book character would one expect such incompetent leadership.

Thanks go to Tulsa Topics for the clip.
Bates Line for the question asked the Mayor.
MedBlogged (candidate for mayor) for transcript and analysis.