CHICAGO (CBS) — President Donald Trump did not specify what he meant when he threatened to “send in the feds” if Chicago doesn’t get violent crime under control, but city leaders and clergy said the last thing the city needs is National Guard troops on every street corner.
“If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!” Trump said on his Twitter account Tuesday evening.
He did not follow up that tweet with additional information, leaving Chicago aldermen and others guessing as to exactly what the president had in mind.
Chicago police have disputed the crime figures cited by Trump. According to Chicago Police, as of Tuesday evening, so far in 2017 there have been 182 shootings in Chicago – on par with the same timeframe last year. So far, 38 of those shootings have been fatal, compared to 33 at this time last year. Police said their statistics only count murders; not justifiable shootings, pending death investigations, or expressway shootings which fall under the jurisdiction of the Illinois State Police.
Ahead of their City Council meeting on Wednesday, several aldermen said they hope Trump was not suggesting he’d order in National Guard troops, as Fox News host Bill O’Reilly suggested on his show on Tuesday, not long before Trump’s tweet about sending in the feds.
“If I were president, I’d say, ‘You know what? The next month, we’re going to have the Guard in these neighborhoods to stop this,” O’Reilly said.
Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) noted, in the past, Trump has said Chicago could solve its crime problem “in a week” if police were tougher, so he is waiting to find out what Trump meant by threatening to send in the feds.
“We do need the federal government to come into Chicago a little more aggressively, but not boots. What we need is federal money for housing, federal money for employment training, federal money for mentorship, federal money for new bridges and streets” he said.
Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) echoed that sentiment.
“I hope when he say he’s going to send in feds that he’s referring to sending in some federal money to deal with all of the other reasons why we have crime in our community. Just policing the issue is not going to solve the issue,” he said.
Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th) said the federal government also should get involved in helping the Chicago Police Department hire more officers trained in law enforcement.
Ald. Sophia King (4th) said militarizing law enforcement would only exacerbate tensions between police and the public.
“As I go around to communities, knocking on doors, they’re afraid, and he [Trump] has placed a lot of fear, a lot of needless fear, in people,” she said. “We welcome the federal government, but I think the federal government needs to come with money for jobs.”
Father Michael Pfleger, a renowned activist minister, said he adamantly opposes using the National Guard to fight crime in Chicago. He said, even if violent crime were to go down with troops on the streets, it would just go back up when they left.
“You can send in National Guard, which I’m absolutely against, and do a suppression to stop violence, and have a lot of people on the corners for a month or two months. You pull them out, you’re back at ground zero,”
Pfleger said, instead, the Trump administration should focus on providing more federal funding toward economic development, jobs, and education in Chicago.
“If he’s talking about coming in with federal resources to help support communities with jobs, with education, with businesses, and help equalize the playing field as well as law enforcement to deal with illegal guns and gun trafficking; if you’re talking about the comprehensive approach, fine,” Pfleger said. “We don’t need a big brother to come in and lock everybody up.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson also spoke out against Trump’s threat on Twitter.
from CBS Chicago http://ift.tt/2ktA2nm
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