When the federal government announced that it had accused 61 other people in Chicago as part of Operation Legend in August, that number meant little to Marquinn McDonald, who conducts night patrols in his South Side community so that seniors, women and young people return home safely
“They have their numbers. It’s beautiful. They made 61 arrests,” he said with some sarcasm. “Okay, you locked up a user, but the user just died. “
In Chicago, the number of weekly murders was reduced after the launch of Operation Legend, a crime initiative that the Department of Justice has implemented in nine cities since July. The week the rates were announced, another 10 people died, less than part of it. before federal officials were sent, but that number has doubled ever since.
Trump’s leadership has used federal government force to take strong action against violent crimes. In President Donald Trump’s election rallies, the words “law and order” are a staple, as he sells himself to the electorate as a crime-fighting leader while portraying big cities led by democracy as situations of anarchy and anarchy.
In a heated and chaotic exchange in Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Trump attacked cities like Chicago and New York for emerging crimes, mocked Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for his watch history, and stoked fears of a suburban extinction.
“The other people of this country need and ask for the law and order Array . . . and he probably wouldn’t even say the sentence,” Trump said, adding that if Biden were elected, “the suburbs would disappear. “
Biden REFUSED to use the term LOI AND ORDER!There are the suburbs.
Trump’s wife in this effort, Attorney General William Barr, whose Justice Department sent a lot of federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri; Chicago, Chicago, Chicago, Chicago, Albuquerque; Detroit, Detroit, Detroit, Detroit, Cleveland; Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Memphis; St. Louis and Indianapolis,Miles have been arrested, adding up many fugitives. Dozens of firearms and gigantic quantities of drugs were also seizen.
But violent crimes are due to dissipation in the cities where the high-profile federal initiative was launched, and experts say it is too early to assess whether Operation Legend is a good fortune or an “accomplice. “
The hasty nature of the program, scheduled in the months leading up to the election and sometimes without the acceptance of local officials in the cities where it evolved, opened it to complain that it was support. policy for Trump’s re-election, competitive public policy and campaigning.
It is known how long Operation Legend will last in those cities, but federal officials sent to Kansas City, Missouri, left after just over two months.
Experts say that to have a meaningful and lasting effect on violent crime, it takes more than a temporary push of badges on the streets.
“There must be persistence,” said Chris Swecker, former chief of the FBI’s criminal division. “If all he does is accumulate resources and take them out, it’s just for the show. “
Last week, Barr credited the program for “drastically reducing” homicides and violent crimes. However, Barr identified the challenge of generating effects quickly.
In Milwaukee, Barr said the non-fatal shootings had subsided in the weeks following Operation Legend’s arrival in the city, that there had been no corresponding drop in the murders.
In Detroit, Operation Legend has led to the seizure of drugs and 189 illegal weapons and the arrest of 290 fugitives since the program began two months ago, said Matthew Schneider, u. S. attorney in eastern Michigan District.
“If we didn’t have Operation Legend, those weapons and drugs would still be on Array streets. It literally saves lives,” Schneider said. ” These fugitives were wanted for murder and sexual assault and were hit off the streets, which reduces crime. “
Trump has long talked about the rise in crime in the country, especially in major cities.
“Crime is out and getting worse. Look at what’s happening in Chicago and downtown,” he tweeted in 2016, shortly after winning the Republican nomination and at that time he also declared himself a “public order candidate. “
Trump’s rhetoric dates back to 1968, when Richard Nixon issued a law enforcement message and pledged to do so on behalf of the “no screams, no protesters” who “are not to blame for the crime in the country. “
In his inaugural address, Trump denounced “American carnage” and his positioning intensified as he sought a mandate.
Last week, the Department of Justice designated New York, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle as “anarchist jurisdictions,” raising violence in cities amid an era of civil unrest opposed to police brutality following the deaths of George Floyd and other unarmed blacks.
The expansion of Operation Legend has largely followed the deployments of federal officials to Portland, where the goal of suppressing protests against the police has raised serious doubts. Federal officials have given public assurances that the initiative focuses on crime-fighting efforts and is different from the wave. federal agents in Portland.
The language used through the president and repeated in news and social media has had an effect on the perceptions of many in the United States. 65% of Americans said law enforcement was a “major problem” on a Monmouth University ballot published this 48% said they were convinced Trump could handle it, while 52% were confident in Biden.
Meanwhile, there are marked differences among Americans as to whether cities are besieged by protesters and counter-demonstrators. Those who live in rural spaces are more likely to agree with this feeling than those living in urban spaces, and Republicans are more likely to agree with it than Democrats, according to a USA TODAY/Ipsos poll.
USA TODAY / Ipsos Poll: Most Americans say cities are besieged by protesters
But the president’s rhetoric that the country’s major cities are flooded with violence is distorting america’s criminal trend, according to criminal justice experts.
According to criminal knowledge released through the FBI this week, the rate of violent crime in the country fell from 2000 to 2019, although some cities, adding those where Operation Leyenda was launched, have noticed an increase in homicides and violent crimes. in recent years. months, those numbers remain well below the degrees of the 1990s.
“Many cities have noticed an increase in crime this summer, especially violent crime. But none of those cities are inundated with crimes, whether that means traditionally higher crime rates or the crimes that invade the entire population,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of crime justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Louis. ” That’s just true. “
Rosenfeld said it was too early to say for sure why violent crime had increased in some cities this year, but one factor, he said, is probably the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on police. During the early months of the pandemic, while many stayed home, however, an examination through the National Commission on COVID and Criminal Justice found that homicides and serious attacks increased from spring to summer.
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“Law enforcement and police activity are very low in relation to prepandemic titles and activities,” said Rosenfeld, who led the study. “Many officials are quarantined.
Indeed, the confluence of an economy devastated by COVID-19 and calls to “de-finance the police” have noticed the biggest cuts in police budgets in a decade, according to the Police Executive Investigation Forum.
Police have been less “aggressive” in reporting crimes after protests in the past, such as those in Baltimore after Freddie Gray’s death, when rapes, they said, halved, followed by an increase in the homicide rate.
Meanwhile, Trump blamed a far-left motion against police in pronouncing the expansion of Operation Legfinish in a public appearance with Barr and other federal officials in July. In a speech shrouded in political connotations, Trump called for an end to “this bloodshed. “”
In Kansas City, where Operation Legend began in early July after the death of 4-year-old LeGend Talifero, officials said violent crime, in addition to homicides, had decreased in the weeks following the arrival of federal officials.
But they also identified that violence remains one in Kansas City; 2020 is still on track to be much more fatal than the last four years.
“This is a victory lap
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Operation Legend expands as federal agents and officials head to Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee as Operation Legend expands
Local officials said that while they appreciated additional federal resources, reducing violent crimes in their cities required more than a unique technique to arrest others through cargo or seize weapons through dozens.
In Albuquerque, which has seen a steady backlog of violent crime since at least 2012, the Justice Department has prosecuted 60 more people for gun and drug-related crimes, but Acting Police Chief Harold Medina said Operation Legend had not had a significant effect. on the number of homicides since it was introduced two months ago.
So far, Albuquerque has noticed 56 homicides, less than at the same time in 2019, when the city recorded 80 homicides.
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“I have not had an era in which violent crime rates have been reduced as a result of a federal operation. I think their hearts are in the right position for us, they need us,” Medina said.
But he also said that adding officials to the streets isn’t necessarily what Albuquerque needed. Police are already arresting thousands of people a year, he said. The biggest impediment is getting them through the justice system.
“Instead of having 20 agents, I would have looked for them to send us 20 prosecutors,” Medina said.
John Anderson, the U. S. attorney in New Mexico, said Operation Legend was never conceived as an unlimited wave of federal agents.
“The Justice Department and the Attorney General that the fight against violent crime is the duty of the local police,” Anderson said.
However, he said, the program was not “a one-time solution,” adding that Operation Legend also provides long-term investments to albuquerque’s police force.
“One of the criticisms that has been heard and brought to the center has been this concept that there will be federal pressure from law enforcement to reduce crime, and then the approval government will leave and the crime will resume,” Anderson said. “The government’s federal approval efforts to combat crime violence pass long before Operation Legend.
Across the country, the Department of Justice has allocated millions of dollars to crime-fighting efforts and the hiring of more police officers in the cities of Operation Legend.
The Justice Department has used a wealth of resources in its arsenal, adding intelligence analysts, forensic experts and fugitive trackers to rid the streets of violent criminals.
However, local officials felt that the program did little to prevent long-term violent crimes.
“The long-term solution is to turn the culture of the city,” Medina said, adding that addressing disorders such as substance abuse among young people is part of it. “The short-term solution is a lot of arrests. “
In Cleveland, where more federal resources arrived in late July, 72 were charged with federal crimes, adding up to 26 firearms offenses. Aid comes at a time when local killings amount to 117, so this year, well ahead of 90 recorded in 2019. , according to branch statistics.
“There are many things that the federal government brings to the table. They are a wonderful asset, but it can take years to reduce their size. Our challenge is a lack of resources. We’re doing anything proactive. Everything we do is responsive,” he said, a user familiar with the department’s operations.
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“The federal government allows us to catch the bad guys, but they don’t stop bad things from happening to us,” said the source, which is not legal to comment publicly.
In Chicago, Operation Legend caused many arrests, adding 150 federal gun and drug offenses. While crime in general has decreased, homicides have gone in the opposite direction; 2020 is already the deadliest the city has noticed in the last 4 years.
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Weekly murder figures in the city fell in July and August, but last week they returned to 20, more or less like when Operation Legend was introduced.
In Detroit, where the Department of Justice has prosecuted 71 people, the police department’s weekly violent crime figures show no sustained decline since Operation Legend began last July; homicides, annoying attacks, robberies and sexual assaults have deteriorated significantly.
Schneider, detroit’s federal prosecutor, said his office’s investigation into the effect of Operation Legend focuses on homicides and non-fatal shootings during the 60-day era before and after the program began. The city had 75 homicides and 325 non-fatal shootings in the two months before Operation Legend, Schneider said. Those numbers were reduced to 54 homicides and 240 non-fatal shootings in the next two months.
“The statistics show that it works. It will continue to work,” he said.
In Miwaukee, weekly crime totals are not available, however, police reported that there were 136 homicides from January to mid-September, which already exceeds the annual totals of the past two years. There have been more than 500 non-fatal shootings as of date, also overshadowing the 2019 and 2018 totals through a few dozen.
In the two months since the start of Operation Legend in Milwaukee, the Department of Justice has prosecuted 47 people. The city has noticed 40 homicides and 137 non-fatal shootings at this time. During the same time last year, there were only 16 homicides and 83 undead. -Deadly shots.
Barr reported last week that federal aid in Milwaukee would continue as “we violent offenders on the streets. “
“Let’s double and keep pushing, ” said Barr.
Swecker, a former chief of the FBI’s criminal division, said the federal government had deployed research resources to communities for years to solve criminal problems.
The Department of Justice has channeled millions of dollars to the Safe Neighborhoods Project, federal collaborations with local law enforcement that focus primarily on gangs of criminals and armed criminals.
“The purpose is to identify the 10% who are involved in 90% of the crimes,” Swecker said. “But it takes time for such methods to work. Typically, the federal government sends research resources and analysts who track mobile phones or read about other evidence. They don’t send other people to stand guard on the street.
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“It may take a year or more for violence to be minimized, and that’s whether the program is effective and well done,” Swecker said.
Laurie Robinson, a former deputy attorney general who led the Decomposing of Justice studies and local grant programs, said components with law enforcement are a component of dismantling operations.
“But the truth is, in most cases, there is no immediate impact,” said Robinson, who co-chaired the White House working group on 21st-century police under the Obama administration.
“Unless you haven’t done so on the dismantling of drug gangs, to have a long-term impact, you’d like to give it five or six months. You should also take a look at operations that gain advantages from the federal government’s unique ability to deal with -level players. »
In Chicago, South Side resident McDonald said he felt safer.
“Everyone thinks the way to solve the crime is to lock other people up and put them in jail.
‘It’s like saying, ‘Okay, you have a disease, take this Tylenol for pain. »»
Two months after the publication of the federal initiative in Chicago, McDonald said he was petrified every time his wife told him he was taking his children for a walk.