The city of Chicago has become a shooting gallery in recent weeks and Donald Trump has become so concerned that he penned a letter to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, criticizing them for a lack of leadership.
While Pritzker has pretty much ignored the carnage on Chicago streets, Lightfoot has come under fire for low morale in the Chicago Police Department and her seeming paralysis over the shootings.
The president said while he has been heartened to see crime reductions nationally the last few years, he has been “horrified by the continued violence in this great American city.”
The letter goes into detail on the city’s violence numbers from the last weekend in May, when more than 80 people were shot and nearly two dozen killed. Last weekend, the numbers climbed even higher, with 104 people shot and 14 killed, including a 3-year-old boy and multiple teens.
“Your lack of leadership on this important issue continues to fail the people you have sworn to protect,” the letter reads. “I am concerned it is another example of your lack of commitment to the vulnerable citizens who are victims of this violence and a lack of respect for the men and women in law enforcement.”
Naturally, Lightfoot cried “racism” and said Trump was using shooting victims to “score cheap political points.”
“As our police officers, street outreach workers and residents continue to work tirelessly to keep our communities safe, he’s using the victims of gun violence in our city to score cheap political points, spew racist rhetoric, and ignore the impact of COVID across this country,” she wrote.
Lightfoot has repeatedly cited the pandemic among the reasons for a rise in violence.
Huh? People stay indoors during a lockdown and the coronavirus is the reason so many are getting shot?
Where does Trump use “racist rhetoric”? Just goes to show you can’t criticize a lesbian black mayor without being called a racist.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown has repeated the need to keep violent offenders in jail and revamp the home monitoring system, explaining it’s simply not working.
Pritzker has not yet publicly responded to the letter.
Allowing violent offenders out of jail because they might get sick is about the dumbest thing Democratic mayors and governors have done. It’s not just Chicago that’s seen an uptick in violence. Cities across the country are reporting more shootings, more assaults. While no one has bothered to keep stats on released offenders committing crimes, the superintendent’s complaint says a lot about the policy.
Lightfoot tried to blame the federal government for the shootings.
After the city saw one of its deadliest Memorial Day weekends in years, Lightfoot pointed to a lack of federal resources, jail admittance and court hearings during the coronavirus pandemic for making community policing the most difficult she’s seen in more than 20 years.
It’s not rocket science, your honor. People who are violent belong in jail. Virus or no virus, they’re going to do what they do if they’re out on the street. Stop blaming a “lack of federal resources” for acting like a deer in the headlights during this shooting spree.
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