Rhino <
no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
I see here that Trump is talking about sending the National Guard to
Chicago next to bring crime down.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11346595/trump-dc-federal-takeover-chicago/
I've already seen a headline about Pritzker saying "Hell no!" to this
notion and read a story about your mayor stating his objections. But
what about ordinary Chicagoans? Given the rampant violence there, I
would think people in the hard-hit neighbourhoods would welcome some
help in bringing the crime down but maybe I'm wrong.
I haven't seen any surveys, sorry. Washington, D.C., which is not a
state but a federal enclave, Trump can send in federal troops. The
National Guard has substantial federral funding but in peacetime are in
command of state governors. There is a D.C. National Guard which is
always under federal control and is never commanded by the mayor of
Washington.
I don't know how the Posse Comitatus Act and related legislation that
ended Reconstruction apply to Washington D.C. These acts prohibit the
use of Army troops (and presumably troops from the other services) from domestic law enforcement, but Army troops have been used to quell labor
unrest. Fort Sheridan was built in reaction to the Pullman strike.
It could very well be legal in Washington.
It wouldn't be legal in Chicago. In years past, aldermen and other
elected officials have called upon the mayor to request National Guard
troops in reaction to violent incidents. The governor, but not the
president, is allowed to deploy troops.
But they are not trained as police officers. They cannot patrol a police
beat nor investigate crimes.
I will point out the obvious. Voters, probably middle aged and older,
are fed up with crime. They are not anti-police, not even black voters.
Trump picked up Chicago votes in 2024 versus the last two times, and
picked up a lot of support among young black male voters.
All that said, my guess is that most voters, regardless of how they feel
about policing and lawlessness, would not see deployment of National
Guard troops as a policing strategy given that they are not police. It's
highly unlikely they'd be put in areas near specific expressway
interchanges with very high drug trafficking, which leads to plenty of
murders, and open market illicit drug sales. The troops would be
downtown for television news coverage and visibility.
The mayor also insists that crime has been down the last few years so no >help is necessary. But is crime *really* down or are their claims just >another instance of what The Wire called "juking the stats"? As I
recall, there was dialog to the effect that crime would routinely get >reduced by, for example, reporting an attempted murder as a simple
assault. (It would seem pretty hard to prove that anyone was juking the >stats unless perhaps a whistle-blower from within the police department
came forward.)
That was a plot point in a later season of Bosch!
Police commanders have always been under pressure to downgrade crime
statitics. But violent crime is down nationwide; Chicago is benefitting
from the trend.
I have to admit I'm curious about how both DC and Chicago claim to have >reduced crime dramatically on their own in the past couple of years, >particularly with Biden letting literally millions of unvetted migrants
into the country, which surely would have INCREASED crime that was
already high.
Big city police departments in no way reduced violent crime on their
own. They benefitted from the post-pandemic drop in crime. But there
were some violence intervention strategies, which Chicago has been a
leader on, they may have helped a tiny bit. There are people who follow
social media. It can be obvious that what gets posted will lead to some
sort of armed payback. If the posters can be identified, it might be
possible to send in "interrupters" -- former gang bangers who have
served their prison sentences -- to calm things down. btw, on social
media, the girls can be worse than the boys about egging things on till violence erupts, although if a girl commits the violence, she's more
like to stab (which can still be murder) than fire a gun in anger.
I'm just curious about what "real people" - as opposed to cherry-picked >spokespeople of one cause or another - think. I can't imagine anyone is >happy about the level of crime, particularly summer weekends where close
to 100 people are shot with several dying. But I can imagine that people >might be highly skeptical about Trump's proposed solutions....
Generally, decent people don't want more policing but more effective
policing. They generally don't want shows of force, cops just
intimidating people without regard to law enforcement. They'd see
deployment of National Guard troops as political theater.
Now, if there were effectively-run federal-state task forces to
investigate interstate crimes with particular impact upon Chicago,
they'd certainly welcome that.
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