President Donald Trump, who once insisted Chicago’s crime problem could be solved within a week, announced plans Wednesday to send a “surge of federal law enforcement” to the city to address ongoing violence.
Though agents also will be sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and could eventually be seen in New York, Philadelphia and other locations, Trump singled out Chicago as being in the most critical need of additional resources.
“Perhaps no citizens have suffered more from the menace of violent crime than the wonderful people of Chicago, a city I know very well,” Trump said.
Attorney General William Barr said hundreds of federal agents could take part in the surge in the city, where they will be engaged in “classic crime-fighting” such as investigating homicides, gangs, gun crime and drug trafficking organizations. The new agents will include members of the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, among others.
The president called Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot after his news conference to reiterate his plan. Lightfoot described the call as “brief and straightforward” in a statement, despite the rancor that has defined their social media exchanges in recent months.
The mayor offered a measured response to the announcement, expressing both cautious optimism about the additional resources and skepticism about Trump’s motives. She has repeatedly said the kind of force captured on camera on the streets of Portland, Oregon, is not welcome in Chicago.
“If those agents are here to actually work in partnership and support of gun violence and violent cases, plugging into existing infrastructure of federal agents, not trying to play police in our streets, then that’s something different,” Lightfoot said, “but the proof is going to be in the pudding.”
Officials were quick to point out the difference between the Chicago surge and the situation in Portland, where unidentified agents have been arresting protesters who allegedly were vandalizing a federal building and taking them away in unmarked cars. The Chicago effort will focus more on helping police deal with the increase in neighborhood violence, they said.
“In Chicago, we see an unprecedented rise in crime against fellow citizens,” said Chad Wolf, acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. “The DHS mission in Portland is to protect federal property and our law enforcement officers. In Chicago, the mission is to protect the public from violent crime on the streets.”
For Lightfoot, the prospect of increased federal assistance for anti-crime efforts is a thorny proposition. More federal agents could help with the city’s skyrocketing violence, but the unfolding controversy in Portland and Trump’s repeated harsh rhetoric toward Chicago has led to high public mistrust in the federal government, which both she and Gov. J.B. Pritzker acknowledged.
“We know the ATF, FBI, DEA are coming to and are in Chicago engaged in activities to help local law enforcement … that seems like legitimate activity to go after criminal enterprise,” Pritzker said. “But it’s this other thing that’s going on where people are wearing camouflage uniforms with no identification about who they are, claiming to be protecting federal buildings … that is not something that is acceptable in the state of Illinois or city of Chicago.”
The Trump announcement comes a day after a mass shooting outside a South Side funeral home in which 15 people were injured. The city has experienced one of its most violent years in recent memory, with 414 homicides through Sunday this year compared with 275 at the same time last year, official CPD statistics show, a 51% increase.
Among the homicide victims discussed by Trump at the news conference was 14-year-old Vernado Jones Jr., who was one of four people killed in a shooting in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood on July 4. The FBI has offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of the people involved in his killing.
Vernado’s mother attended Trump’s announcement in the East Room of the White House.
“Please know that all Americans mourn by your side. We will carry your son’s memory. He will not be forgotten,” Trump told her.
Known as Operation Legend in honor of a slain 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro of Kansas City, Missouri, the Chicago mission will be overseen by John Lausch Jr., U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Lightfoot repeatedly has made clear that most of her reassurance about Trump’s plan stems from Lausch, her friend and former colleague, being in charge at the local level.
Lightfoot initially threatened to sue if Trump tried to send federal agents into Chicago without her permission.
She changed her tone after talking with Lausch, who assured her an influx of law enforcement would be working “collaboratively” with Chicago cops against violent crime, and not confronting protesters.
The U.S. Marshals Service as part of the new plan will direct violent fugitive apprehension operations within Chicago to identify wanted gang members, violent criminals and firearms violators. The Department of Homeland Security is also committing at least 100 agents, already stationed in Chicago, to investigate narcotics and firearm traffickers.
The federal government also will earmark $3.5 million to reimburse the Chicago Police Department and city of Chicago for the work of local law enforcement on the effort.
“A top priority as federal prosecutors is to reduce violent crime, particularly in a large urban area like Chicago,” Lausch said in a statement. “We will use these new resources and every other available federal law enforcement tool to reduce the unacceptable level of violent crime in Chicago.”
Chicago police and other big-city departments across the country regularly work with federal agencies such as the FBI, DEA, ATF and the U.S. attorney’s office on investigations into drug- and gun-trafficking and myriad other crimes tied to violence. In Chicago, such investigations are often based in certain neighborhoods on the South and West sides, where much of the violence in the city occurs.
Such partnerships over the years have been through federal programs such as Project Exile, aimed at shifting more gun prosecutions to federal judges so they can hand down stiffer penalties, and Project Safe Neighborhoods, designed to better coordinate federal resources and local intelligence on crime.
The effectiveness of a law enforcement surge is far from guaranteed, particularly in Chicago where increased police staffing has done little to stem the violent tide in recent years. Barr blamed the most recent uptick on the “extreme reaction” to George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police, while Trump pointed the finger at his political adversaries.
Trump, at one point, said there’s been a “radical movement” calling for U.S. cities to abolish and defund police departments. No Chicago mayor in the past 30 years has ever made such a proposal and, in fact, many have launched their own surges in an effort to beat back crime.
“For decades, politicians running many of our major cities have put the interests of criminals above the rights of abiding citizens,” Trump said. “These same politicians have embraced the far-left movement to break up our police departments, causing violent crime to spiral — and I mean, spiral — seriously out of control.”
The verbal jabs continued later in the afternoon, when Trump was asked about Lightfoot’s comments during a COVID-19 briefing. After insisting his administration has done “some amazing things” during the pandemic, Trump said he was targeting cities with “radical left” mayors and specifically called out Lightfoot, who sent the president a letter raising concerns about federal officers being sent to Chicago and directing him to use his authority to enact gun control measures.
“Chicago is a disaster. The mayor is saying, ‘don’t come in,'” Trump said, before adding: “I assume she’s saying that for political reasons. She’s a Democrat … she’s making a big mistake. People are dying.”
Lightfoot shrugged off Trump’s criticism, calling his announcement alongside victims’ families “a political stunt.” Citing Trump’s penchant for attacking female mayors, she accused him of trying to divert attention away from his handling of the pandemic.
“If he cared about cities, if he cared about Chicago, there are meaningful ways that the president could actually help,” Lightfoot said. “Instead, it’s denigrate, divide and disparage. That’s not leadership.”
