Is the 'Ferguson effect' real? Officer who feared for her life when she was savagely beaten by a suspect 'did not draw her gun because she wanted to avoid backlash against a police shooting'

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An officer whose face was 'repeatedly smashed into the pavement' on Wednesday by a man who was allegedly high on PCP did not draw her gun because she was afraid to face the scrutiny of another police shooting, Chicago's superintendent said.

During the city's police and fire awards on Thursday, Police Chief Eddie Johnson stopped short of naming the controversial 'Ferguson effect', although he said the 43-year-old officer's self doubt was a problem facing law enforcement.  

Named after the Missouri city where black teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by a white officer in August 2014, the 'Ferguson Effect' was first coined by St Louis police chief Samuel Dotson to describe a rise in crime while police were focused on the resulting protests. 

Other officials have used the term to suggest cops have become less proactive about enforcing the law due to a national spotlight on race and police brutality.

President Barack Obama criticized the use of the term, but Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist whose work was first used to debunk the theory, told the Guardian his 'views have been altered' after conducting an extensive analysis in homicide figures.

During the city's police and fire awards ceremony on Thursday, Police Chief Eddie Johnson stopped short of naming the controversial 'Ferguson effect'

The Ferguson Effect was named after the Missouri city where Michael Brown (left) was fatally shot by Darren Wilson (right) in 2014. Wilson was not indicted by a grand jury

The 43-year-old Chicago police officer, whose name has not been released, was hospitalized after a car accident on Wednesday turned violent. 

The suspect, who was allegedly high on PCP, stepped outside his car, which rolled through an intersection before crashing into a liquor store. 

Responding police tried to calm the man down, but he smashed the 43-year-old's face into the pavement until she lost consciousness, police said. 

Surveillance video did not capture the entirety of the beating, but Carmen Martinez, who was working inside the liquor store told WGNTV: 'He threw her down and started punching her like if she was a punching bag. It was really bad.'

Two other officers sustained minor injuries.

At Thursday's awards ceremony, the police chief said: 'This officer could (have) lost her life last night.'

'As I was at the hospital last night, visiting with her, she looked at me and said she thought she was gonna die, and she knew that she should shoot this guy, but she chose not to because she didn’t want her family or the department to go through the scrutiny the next day on national news,' Johnson also said.

He commended her bravery and said: 'We have to change the narrative for law enforcement across this country.'

Other people have used the term to suggest cops have become wary of enforcing the law due to a national spotlight on race and police brutality (pictured, Michael Brown Senior, center, leading a march after his son's death)

Protests erupted around the country after Brown's death, shining a spotlight on race relations and police brutality in a debate that rages on two years later. Pictured, protesters in New York City's Time Square

When Johnson was asked whether he thought Wednesday's incident reflected officers becoming less proactive, he said: 'I don’t know if that’s an example of laying back. 

'But, that’s an example of how dangerous this job is. And because of the scrutiny going on nationwide, it does make officers second-guess themselves. And that’s what we don’t want them to do.'

Studies on the Ferguson Effect remain murky, but a researcher who was once skeptical changed his views after a detailed analysis. 

In June, Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri St Louis, said he found it was a 'plausible' explanation for the 16 per cent rise in homicides from 2014 to 2015 in the 56 largest cities in the US.

But Rosenfeld told the Guardian his conclusion differed from the 'dominant interpretation' of the effect, which assumes police 'disengage from vigorous enforcement actions' as a result of harsh criticisms.

He believes the effect is 'plausible' in that 'longstanding grievances and discontent with policing in African American communities' are 'activated' by controversial incidents of police violence. The 'chronic discontent' then breeds violence, he said. 

He was also careful to separate himself from the conservative writer Heather McDonald's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which argued that criticisms of the police would eventually backfire on black people in inner cities. 

Rosenfeld said: 'She thinks the solution is to stop criticizing the police; I think the criticism is understandable, rooted in a history of grievance, and serves as a reminder that the police must serve and protect our most vulnerable communities.”

On Wednesday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's police accountability overhaul was passed in City Council.

The Independent Police Review Authority will be replaced by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability in an attempt to rebuild trust between minority communities and the police force.

A deputy inspector general will also be instated to overlook police accountability.  

On Wednesday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (left) won a major victory after his police accountability overhaul was passed in City Council