Someone needs to stand up to the black leaders and question whether they are in contact with the criminal black community. I would bet there are a lot of black people who are tired of the criminals who terrorize every one in their neighborhoods. Shabazz may be right in that there is some serious mental illness going on.
Some thoughts along those lines (which will probably be unpopular, and there are some gross generalizations):
Based on whites from Chattanooga I have known (mostly in the 1970’s-80’s), I suspect that most/many older blacks there, as in many places, have experienced racism aplenty in years past, including at the hands of police and government. Blatant racism has probably declined since then, but it takes decades to restore trust. And even though blacks are overwhelmingly the victims of black criminals, many are in a state of denial that blacks are ever actually guilty of anything. Maintaining racial solidarity trumps evidence and reason. Black politicians succeed by exploiting this mentality; they are not going to kill the golden goose.
All this legacy leaves black people with low expectations that contemporary police and government will deliver “justice” for black victims (or perpetrators), or protect witnesses. But practical experience gives them high expectations that black criminals and gangs, and the overall community, will punish those who testify against them. Contemporary black “leaders” seem to do everything in their power to continue this situation, which denies decent black people the normal protection of the law. The resulting lack of protection encourages the belief that the police and legal system do not care about or protect black people, thus explaining all the crime. Nice cycle.
But the root of much contemporary crime is cultural dysfunction caused by the breakdown of the black family caused by welfarism and related “liberal” policies, plus failed schools and sclerotic courts. Mental illness definitely plays a role, since unparented progeny tend to become sociopaths.