By Juana Summers From Mashable

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration said Wednesday that he agrees with FBI Director James Comey that additional scrutiny of law enforcement in the past year could have made some police officers less aggressive, leading to a violent crime spike in some cities.

“I think there’s something to it,” Chuck Rosenberg said of Comey’s earlier remarks, according to multiple reports. “I think he’s spot on. I’ve heard the same thing.”

See also: Chris Christie takes up disputed ‘Ferguson effect’ during debate at: http://mashable.com/2015/10/28/christ-christie-ferguson-effect/#u5pcz4wvGEqK

Rosenberg’s comments Wednesday added new fuel to a simmering debate over whether the so called “Ferguson effect” — which refers to the protests that erupted in 2014 after a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri — has spooked law enforcement in some cities.

“I rely on the chiefs and the sheriffs who are saying that they have seen or heard behavioral changes among the men and women of their forces,” Rosenberg said Wednesday.

“The manifestation of it may be a reluctance to engage” with suspected criminals, Rosenberg — who served as Comey’s chief of staff before joining the DEA — added.

During a recent speech at the University of Chicago, Comey said that he spoke to officers in “one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars.”

“They told me, ‘We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars,'” Comey said.

Comey’s remarks have been disputed by the White House and President Barack Obama himself.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said last month that “the evidence we have seen so far doesn’t support the contention that law enforcement officials are shirking their responsibilities.”

Speaking in Chicago to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Obama said that while “it is true that in some cities…gun violence and homicides have spiked…the fact is that so far at least across the nation, the data shows that we are still enjoying historically low rates of violent crime.”

“What we can’t do is cherry-pick data or use anecdotal evidence to drive policy or to feed political agendas,” he said.

IMAGE: Police and protesters square off outside the Ferguson Police Department and Municipal Court in Ferguson, Mo., on March 11, 2015.

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