Trump announces plan to send federal law
enforcement to Chicago, Albuquerque
The president says the initiative is necessary to
counter violent crime, but local leaders say it’s “unacceptable” and political.
By CAITLIN
OPRYSKO
07/22/2020
05:42 PM EDT
Updated:
07/22/2020 06:28 PM EDT
President
Donald Trump announced plans on Wednesday to surge federal law enforcement
units to Chicago and Albuquerque, the latest instance of domestic intervention
by the federal government, over the objections of state and local leaders, in
cities that have recently been rocked by unrest and violence.
The
initiative, dubbed “Operation Legend” in memory of 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro,
who was shot and killed last month in Kansas City, Mo., will send “hundreds of
skilled law enforcement officers” from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals
Service and the Department of Homeland Security to both cities “ to help drive
down violent crime,” Trump said from the White House.
Around 200
federal agents have already been deployed to Kansas City, Attorney General
William Barr said, adding that a “comparable number of agents” would be sent to
Chicago to “augment” the city’s existing task forces. The Justice Department
will send an additional 35 agents to Albuquerque, he said.
Trump also
used the occasion to rebuke the Democratic leaders of cities such as
Minneapolis, Philadelphia and New York, where he linked a recent spike in
violent crime to calls for drastic police reforms, including pushes to defund
police departments and redirect more money toward social services.
He cast the
decision as a reluctant choice, though he has threatened to intervene in
America’s largest cities since mass protests over systemic racism and police
violence first broke out in Minneapolis at the end of May.
“Frankly,
we have no choice but to get involved,” he said.
“We must
remember that the job of policing the neighborhood falls on the shoulders of
local elected leadership,” Trump said on Wednesday, joined by the loved ones of
victims of gun violence. “Never forget that. When they abdicate their duty, the
results are catastrophic.”
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“Americans
must hold their city leaders accountable,” he went on, a demand he said entails
insisting “that community officials fully support, fully back and fully fund
their local police departments.”
Barr and
acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf took pains to differentiate
Operation Legend from the deployment of federal officers currently taking place
in Portland, Ore. Local officials and even former DHS secretaries have
denounced the tactics used by those agents, who are part of a DHS-led “Rapid
Deployment Force,” according to a recent court filing.
The federal
agents in Portland have been shown on video clashing violently with protesters
there with less-lethal projectiles and tear gas and in some cases snatching
individuals from the street in unmarked vehicles. The tactics are the subject
of multiple legal challenges, and Portland politicians have demanded that the
federal forces be withdrawn from the city.
More than a
dozen mayors preemptively signed on to a letter to Barr and Wolf objecting to a
potential surge in their own cities and accusing the administration of
violating protesters’ constitutional rights and employing “unacceptable and
chilling” tactics while abusing federal law enforcement “purely for campaign
fodder.” In a similar letter to congressional leadership, the same group asked
for hearings on the issue and the inclusion of language in spending bills to
block taxpayer money from paying for such operations.
Both of
Oregon’s senators and two Portland-area House members on Wednesday asked
inspectors general at both the Justice and Homeland Security departments to
look into the actions of federal forces in the city.
But leaders
in New Mexico and Chicago suggested that they weren’t totally opposed to what
the administration announced.
In Chicago,
where Mayor Lori Lightfoot had asserted she would not allow a Portland-like
force in her city, the mayor boasted that “I’m glad to see the president got
the message.”
While she
asserted the city would keep a close eye on the officers stationed there,
Lightfoot didn’t rule out the potential upside.
“If those
agents are here to actually work in partnership on support of gun violence and
violent cases, plugging into existing infrastructure federal agents, not trying
to play police in our streets, then that’s something different and that may add
value,” she told reporters during a news conference, though she added: “It’s
too soon to be able to say if this is a value add or not.”
Her
hesitant embrace of federal assistance came as her city saw 23 shootings on
Tuesday alone, including a mass shooting outside of a funeral home that injured
15.
But the
mayor also accused the president of targeting Democratic-led cites to “divert
attention” from what she called his “failure” on the coronavirus pandemic, a
notion that Trump rejected later on Wednesday.
Gov.
Michelle Luhan Grisham of New Mexico, a Democrat, also said she would be
monitoring the agents “for potential civil rights violations if and when the
federal government sends officers to our state.”
Still, she
added: “We would welcome a genuine conversation about community public safety
work and fighting violent crime. I hope that is the case.”
The agents
that will be detailed under Operation Legend, Barr said on Wednesday, will be
“working to solve murders and to take down the violent gangs, and they’ll be
working shoulder to shoulder with state and local colleagues.” He too, asserted
the rise in crime “is a direct result of the attack on the police forces and
the weakening of police forces.”
“This is a
different kind of operation, obviously, than the tactical teams we use to
defend against riots and mob violence,” he said. “We will continue to confront
mob violence,” he added, calling their directive “classic crime fighting.”
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