Trump: Tougher Police Would Solve Chicago Gun Violence

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has asserted that Chicago gun violence could be cleaned up swiftly if police officers were allowed to use extraordinary tactics.

Murders in Chicago have spiked by 49 percent when compared to 2015. Since January, there have been 441 homicides in the Windy City. In comparison, there had been 437 homicides altogether in 2015, the Chicago Tribune reports.

On Aug. 22, the business mogul told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly that Chicago police officers need to be allowed to be tougher in order to address the city’s rising murder rate.

“Well, you know why they can’t solve it — because they don’t have the right people in charge,” Trump said. “I know police in Chicago. If they were given the authority to do it, they would get it done. … By being very much tougher than they are now. They right now are not tough.”

The GOP nominee cited a conversation he had had with a “top police officer in Chicago who is not the police chief.”

Trump recounted that he had asked the unnamed Chicago law enforcement officer how to halt the violence.

“He said, ‘Mr. Trump I would be able to stop it in one week,’ and I believed him 100 percent,” Trump said.

The business mogul said that the law enforcement officer’s demeanor had impressed him.

“I could see by the way he was dealing with his people, he was a rough, tough guy, they respected him greatly,” Trump said.

O’Reilly pressed the GOP nominee on just what methods the anonymous law enforcement officer was proposing.

Trump said, “He wants to use tough police tactics, which is OK when you have people being killed.”

On Aug. 23, spokesman Anthony Guglielmi of the Chicago Police Department told journalists: “No one in the senior command at CPD has ever met with Donald Trump or a member of his campaign.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks clarified the GOP nominee’s statements, asserting that he had spoken with “some talented and dedicated police officers on a prior visit.”

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump has pitched himself as the candidate most aligned with law enforcement.

On Aug. 22, while campaigning in Akron, Ohio, the GOP nominee allegedly promised a local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police that he would make it easier for them to obtain military-grade weapons, New York Daily News reports.

Sources: Chicago Tribune, Fox News via YouTube, New York Daily News / Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr