NBC News - Chicago's mayor is defying President Donald Trump's threat to deploy the National Guard to the Windy City to combat crime and scoping out legal avenues to prevent soldiers from overtaking the city.
On Friday, Trump talked about his controversial deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and said Chicago and New York City would be next. He has described the deployment in the nation's capital as a bid to clean up crime, but critics dismiss the move as little more than political overreach.
“The guard is not needed,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told NBC News. “This is not the role of our military. The brave men and women who signed up to serve our country did not sign up to occupy American cities.”
Johnson also noted the city's decline in murders, shootings and car thefts. Chicago police crime data from earlier this month show murders are down 31% from the same time last year, shootings have dropped by 36% and vehicle thefts are down 26%.
“The things that we’re doing in Chicago by investing in people, youth employment, mental health care, services, building more affordable homes, making sure that our detectives bureau has all the resources that it needs ... that’s why we’re seeing the results that we are experiencing right now,” he said.
The Guardian - Donald Trump has been accused of “turning the military on American citizens” after a Pentagon official confirmed that planning is under way to send National Guard troops to Chicago.
Illinois attorney-general Kwame Raoul also told CBS News that the president’s actions are both “un-American” and “unwise strategically”.
Accusing the president of “turning our military on American citizens in his ongoing attempts to move our nation toward authoritarianism,” he added:
His actions are not just un-American. They are unwise strategically. Our cities are not made safer by deploying the nation’s service members for civilian law enforcement duties when they do not have the appropriate training.
To be clear: We have made no such request for the type of federal intervention we have seen in Los Angeles or Washington DC. There is no emergency in the state of Illinois.
It comes as lieutenant-governor Juliana Stratton accused Trump of pursuing “political theatrics, not safety,” since crime in Chicago is already declining and there was no local request for troops.
No comments:
Post a Comment