The Chicago Tribune reports:
President Donald Trump, who once bragged he could solve Chicago’s crime problem within a week, announced plans Wednesday to flood American cities with a “surge of federal law enforcement” to address ongoing violence, beginning with Chicago.
Trump singled out the city as the one in the most critical in need of more resources to help drive down violence. “Perhaps no citizens have suffered more from the menace of violent crime than the wonderful people of Chicago, a city I know very well,” Trump said.
The new agents will include members of the FBI, US Marshals Service, the DEA and the Department of Homeland Security, among others. The move comes a day after a mass shooting outside a South Side funeral home during which 15 people were injured in what police described as an ongoing gang conflict.
The Associated Press reports:
The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is trying to show that he stands with law enforcement and depict Democrats as weak on crime.
With less than four months to go before Election Day, Trump has been serving up dire warnings that the violence would worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November, as he tries to win over voters who could be swayed by that message.
In trying to explain the spike in violence, experts point to the unprecedented moment the country is living through — a pandemic that has killed more than 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, stay-at-home orders, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather.
NNU Statement on Trump’s Threat to Send Federal Troops to More Major U.S. Cities
140,000 people have died of COVID-19 amidst federal inaction, tens of millions are without work. Our communities need federal help, not armed assaults.
Press Release ➡️ https://t.co/NTyyIwuPMr pic.twitter.com/mcdlK77OdV
— NationalNursesUnited (@NationalNurses) July 22, 2020
President Trump: “I am announcing that the Department of Justice will immediately surge federal law enforcement to the city of Chicago.”
Full video here: https://t.co/lsXnpjlWcN pic.twitter.com/o6Yelj7bhq
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 22, 2020
Watch live: Mayor Lightfoot speaks publicly moments after Trump announces hundreds of federal agents being sent to #Chicago https://t.co/IDREUAr2kG pic.twitter.com/zYar80OLyo
— NBC Chicago (@nbcchicago) July 22, 2020
Trump claimed “hundreds” of federal agents from five different agencies would be deployed to Chicago, following the deployment earlier this month of officers to Portland, Oregon. https://t.co/wXLSY1yWHb
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 22, 2020
Attorney General Bill Barr attempts to paint the millions of Americans who protested following the death of George Floyd as extremists.
The only extremists here work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. pic.twitter.com/OH2RvJ9H5N
— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) July 22, 2020