"I'm sorry, but it doesn't read like that for me. If it were really getting at the idea of there being underlying issues then I would expect there to be investigation of them to further support that point."

Umm... the point of the article is about "the surface debate is just a bunchy of partisan finger pointing and strawmanning (especially for the point of politicians getting their comments on the news), which covers up the real debate about underlying policy", then the "problem" would be an investigation of the surface debate, which is what you see here.

One can erect a hundred strawmen with a fraction of the resources needed to identify and isolate, let alone communicate the complexity of the underlying issues. Heck, just demonstrating the lack of evidence supporting a strawman requires far more resources.

I would argue demanding a detailed investigation about the underlying issues in order to dismiss the partisan finger pointing and strawmanning is a really good way to ensure that the debate is dominated by partisan finger pointing and strawmanning. If you're wondering why the discourse is shaped this way, you're demonstrating the cause.

It should be enough to say, "You're right about something here. There is an increase in the murder rate, but it's broad national phenomenon whose underlying cause is not understood; your claims don't even fit the shape of the problem, let alone have credible supporting evidence about an underlying cause". That should be enough for the the narrative to be dismissed.

Unfortunately, it's not; thanks to confirmation bias people are much more likely to accept claims with weak or even no evidence that align with their expectations, and will insist on a far higher standard of evidence for anything that doesn't align with their expectations, even if it is simply pointing out that their expectations aren't well supported.