Trump announces 'surge' of federal officers to Chicago to maintain law and order
Jul 23, 2020
Washington D.C. [USA], July 23 : Adopting a hardline approach to maintain "law and order" in federal stated ahead of November's election, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday (local time) said he will "surge" federal law enforcement officers to Chicago and other American cities to help tackle problems like gun violence, CNN reported.
In recent years, cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and New York have turned to Washington for help in combating gun violence and other crimes, arguing that only the federal government has the resources to tackle problems like guns being traded illegally across state borders.
Making a move further in the direction, Trump has ordered federal agents to tamp down on protests in Portland, Oregon, leading to chaotic tableaux and reports of unmarked vehicles snatching people off the streets.
He has also warned that he may order federal officers into other states and cities he deems insufficiently policed, even if governors and mayors in those places don't ask for help.
The development is wading further into an effort to portray Democrats as weak on crime and unable to protect the citizens of places where they are in charge, as per media reports.
His attention in recent days has focused on Chicago, whose Democratic mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Tuesday that she would not allow "Donald Trump's troops" into her city.
Before he became president, Trump once railed against his predecessor for high crime rates in Chicago, but he now blames local officials for the scourge.
Using ominous rhetoric and dark language to describe cities run by Democrats as rife with crime and violence, Trump suggested on Wednesday he had little option but to take steps against those leaders who have failed to save innocent lives.
"No mother should ever have to cradle her dead child in her arms simply because politicians refused to do what is necessary to secure their neighborhood and to secure their city," he said during a mid-afternoon event in the East Room.
Trump's campaign has increasingly turned to dark themes of violence and chaos as it seeks to falsely paint his Democratic rival Joe Biden as anti-police. Since protests spread throughout the country following the murder of George Floyd, Trump has worked to cultivate a tough-on-crime message that includes the federal law enforcement efforts now underway.
Speaking at the same event, Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr criticised what he called "extreme reactions that have demonised police" in the wake of Floyd's killing, which he blamed for "a significant increase in violent crime in many cities."
Trump was announcing the expansion of the Operation Legend initiative, a Justice Department program first established in Kansas City earlier this month that utilises federal law enforcement officers from the FBI, US Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to combat violent crime.
Trump said he was dispatching additional federal law enforcement into other American cities, including Chicago, to tamp down on "heinous crimes of violence."
Meanwhile, criticising the move of what he called "extreme reactions that have demonised police" in the wake of Floyd's killing, Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr said there were about 200 federal agents dispatched as part of the program to Kansas City, and said a comparable number would head to Chicago to augment existing teams already there.
