Presidential candidate Donald Trump said Chicago’s crime problem could be solved by police “being very much tougher” than they are now, adding that during a Chicago visit he met with “very top police” and was told the problem could be stopped in a week with tough tactics.
In an interview Monday night on the Fox News show “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump reiterated his past comments about Chicago violence being “out of control” and added that the Chicago police force does not have “the right people in charge.”
Fox host Bill O’Reilly asked Trump how to solve the city’s crime problem, with homicides up nearly 50 percent.
“How? By being very much tougher than they are right now. They’re right now not tough. I could tell you this very long and quite boring story. But when I was in Chicago, I got to meet a couple of very top police. I said, ‘How do you stop this? How do you stop this? If you were put in charge — to a specific person — do you think you could stop it?’ He said, ‘Mr. Trump, I’d be able to stop it in one week.’ And I believed him 100 percent,” Trump said.
When O’Reilly asked whether the unnamed officer told him how, Trump said: “No, he wants to use tough police tactics, which is OK when you have people being killed.”
But Chicago police said Tuesday that Trump has not met with top brass.
“No one in the senior command at CPD has ever met with Donald Trump or a member of his campaign,” Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
Guglielmi clarified later that since at least March, when a Trump rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago was planned and ultimately canceled, none of the department’s deputy superintendents, commanders of the city’s 22 districts, chiefs of patrol or chiefs of detectives has met with Trump.
It’s not the first time Trump has gotten into a disagreement with Chicago police about their consultation. Trump had cited security reasons for canceling the March 11 event, and his campaign workers said at the time that a Chicago police commander had talked with them prior to it being canceled. But Chicago police issued a statement then denying they had been consulted.
As for Trump’s suggestion that Chicago police could be tougher, Guglielmi responded that the department believes community policing and stricter gun laws are key.
“The best way to address crime is through a commitment to community policing and a commitment to stronger laws to keep illegal guns and repeat violent offenders off the street,” he said in an email.
Trump’s camp said Tuesday that Trump did not specifically say the officer he spoke with was in senior command.
“He didn’t say in the senior command. Those are your words,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email. “Mr. Trump spoke with some talented and dedicated police officers on a prior visit.”
When asked what Trump meant by saying he met with “very top police” in Chicago, Hicks responded: “Capable, smart and talented.”
Trump and his campaign have repeatedly sought to explain the Republican presidential candidate’s rhetoric as misunderstood or mischaracterized after he has been criticized for his comments. From calling President Barack Obama the “founder of ISIS” to saying Russia wouldn’t enter the Ukraine — after it already had — Trump has complained that the media intentionally misunderstands his sarcasm, or he simply denies that he has misspoken.
Trump’s suggestion that crime in Chicago could be fought with tougher tactics comes on the heels of months of national turmoil and protests over use of force by police throughout the country, including Chicago. Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with murder in November in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, and just last week the Police Department announced plans to seek the firing of seven officers for allegedly lying about the shooting. The release of a video of that shooting set off major protests in the city, prompted the firing of the department’s top cop and the U.S. Justice Department’s launch of a civil rights investigation of Chicago police. That federal probe is ongoing.
Chicago police have struggled for years with tamping violence and improving interaction with the public, employing special units to focus on high-crime areas and gangs or sending more cops to beat patrols when violence spikes. The department has created several versions of special units to target gang and drug crews, but then disbanded them after allegations of abuse or corruption surfaced.
The spike in violence in Chicago this year has been particularly vexing. Homicides in Chicago are up 49 percent, according to Chicago Police Department figures, with 441 homicides as of Monday. In comparison, Chicago recorded 473 homicides for all of 2015. So far this year, at least 2,702 people have been shot in Chicago, according to data kept by the Tribune. All of last year, there were 2,988 shooting victims.
Experts who have studied crime for years, however, say a complex mix of factors may be at fault, including the city’s undeterred gang problem and the proliferation of guns, as well as a long history of poverty, joblessness, segregation and neglect in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
The department also was forced this year to revamp how it interacts with citizens in street stops after the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois raised red flags over whether officers were violating citizens’ civil rights.
Officers have complained that the increased scrutiny has led many to feel unsure about stopping anyone. A review of stops and arrests in Chicago earlier this year showed both were down dramatically.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has talked about unfair treatment of residents by police, saying in a speech before the City Council in December that police credibility was at issue in some communities, and that he believed the “code of silence” by police was a problem.
“When African-American mothers, fathers and grandparents feel it is necessary to train their sons and daughters to behave with extreme caution when they are pulled over by police and have both hands visible on the wheel, what does that say?” Emanuel said to aldermen. “We have a trust problem.”
O’Reilly talked about the need for following legal procedure in dealing with suspected criminals, telling Trump: “You have to have a warrant to arrest people. You can’t beat them up. You have to have a warrant to arrest them.”
Trump responded: “All I know is this. I went to a top police officer in Chicago, who is not the police chief, and I could see by the way he was dealing with his people, he was a rough, tough guy. They respected him greatly. … He said, ‘Mr. Trump, within one week, we could stop much of this horror show that’s going on.'”
When pressed, Trump said the officer didn’t say exactly how. “No, and I didn’t ask him because I’m not the mayor of Chicago.”
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