Trump sends letter to Chicago mayor and Illinois governor urging end to ‘city’s devastating violence’
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has urged Chicago’s mayor to end the city’s infamous violence in a letter sent on Friday.
, sent to Governor JB Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot states that has been “horrified” by the city’s “continued violence.”
The president cited an which reported on “the most violent day in 60 years in Chicago” after 18 were killed in 24 hours on May 31.
Those numbers rose even higher last weekend as 104 people were shot and 14 were killed, including a three-year-old boy.
In response, Lightfoot : “I don’t need leadership lessons from Donald Trump.”
Trump wrote to the : “Your lack of leadership on this important issue continues to fail the people you have sworn to protect.”
“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 .”
“More Americans have been killed in Chicago than in combat zones of and combined since , a deadly trend that has continued under your tenure,” Trump said.
The president went on to say US taxpayers “send you millions in federal funding each year to support public safety in Chicago … however, these substantial sums of taxpayer money are not being turned into results.”
Trump said that the leaders “must establish law and order” to “revitalize distressed neighborhoods in Chicago.”
He proposed that if the Democratic leaders wanted, they could work with his Cabinet to “devise a plan to make Chicago safe, since a successful formula has escaped both you and your predecessors.”
“Unfortunately, you continue to put your own political interests ahead of the lives, safety, and fortunes of your own citizens,” Trump wrote. “The people of Chicago deserve better.”
Lightfoot on Friday night tweeted that she stands — “in providing for the safety and well-being of our residents.”
She said that Trump is “using the victims of gun violence in our city to score cheap points, spew racist rhetoric, and ignore the impact of COVID across this country.”
“It is despicable, disgusting, and all too typical. Same old tired playbook. How about some leadership not steeped in the divide and conquer tactics?”
Pritzker’s office also responded to Trump’s letter, with the governor’s press secretary tweeting that Trump “is a failure.”
The office said that “once again resorted to a press stunt in an attempt to distract from his long list of failures, especially his response to and nationwide calls for racial justice.”
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“The people of this state and this nation have unfortunately come to expect his unhinged attempts to politicize tragedy with his predictable and worn-out strategy to distract, distract, distract.”
The recent surge of gun violence in Chicago came following the death of , a Black man who was killed after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nine minutes.
The large number of shootings has put Chicago at a similar pace as in 2016 and 2017 — two of the most violent years in Chicago since the 1990s.