CHICAGO, IL- Illinois Democrats appear to be content with Chicago maintaining its reputation as the murder capital of the United States, refusing offers from President Trump to use federal resources to get crime under control, which has been so successful thus far in Washington, DC.
Fox News Digital reports that lawmakers in the state are refusing to accept the president’s proposals to deploy the National Guard to the city, despite a staffing shortage in the Windy City’s police department that began in the George Floyd riot era and has continued since.
“We’re waiting for a call from Chicago. We’ll fix Chicago. And again, D.C. is right now so safe you can go out,” the president said Monday morning during faith-based remarks at the Museum of the Bible in the nation’s capital, referring to his crime suppression successes in D.C. The murder rate in the capital has plummeted since the National Guard and federal law enforcement assets were deployed there last month.
Democrats in both Chicago and Illinois have told Trump thanks, but no thanks.
“No federal troops in the city of Chicago, no militarized force in the city of Chicago,” far-left mayor Brandon Johnson wailed on Labor Day during a protest aimed at answering the president’s intention to send in the National Guard.
“We’re going to defend our democracy in the city of Chicago. We’re going to protect the humanity of every single person in Chicago.”
Johnson apparently doesn’t know that our country is a Republic, not a Democracy. If he is genuinely interested in protecting “the humanity of every single person in Chicago,” he might start by getting the violent crime and murder rate under control.
On Labor Day weekend, nine people were killed and 52 were wounded over the three days. Last weekend, “only” eighteen people were shot, six fatally.
Chicago has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the most crime-ridden cities in the country and has had a Democratic mayor for nearly 100 years, dating back to 1927. That crime tends to spike on holiday weekends.
Since the salad days of the George Floyd riots of 2020, crimes such as smash-and-grab robberies and illegal street racing have surged along with violent crime. The police department, which reached its highest staffing level in 2019, has seen a significant decline in the number of police officers.
In 2019, the department had 13,353 sworn members. That number has dropped to 11,602 as of July 2025. The city is budgeted for 13,742 sworn officers in FY-2025, according to the city’s Inspector General.
Fox News Digital wrote that, according to news articles between 2020 and 2024, they reflect the adverse effect low staffing numbers have had on Chitown citizens, including unanswered 911 calls with police unable to immediately respond to calls for assistance when more high-profile crimes broke out in the city.
For example, an analysis of police calls in 2023 showed over 50% of 911 calls deemed high priority, including confrontations that posed an imminent threat to a caller or required immediate police action, went unanswered by police, according to Illinois Policy, a nonprofit. In 2019, only 19% of such calls went immediately unanswered.
In October 2024, crimes such as domestic violence, mental health disturbances, a motor vehicle crash, and active fights went unanswered on one evening, according to WGN-9. That happened after a shooting occurred outside a concert that required a heavy police response.
Due to the shortage, officers have been forced to work additional overtime, which is undesirable in a city with the issues that Chicago has. In 2022, the city had to pay $210.5 million for overtime, a 50% increase over 2021 costs, WTTW reported.
Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson and Pritzker’s offices to ask about the police department’s staffing levels, why they rejected the president’s offer of help, and if they believe current staffing is sufficient.
Johnson, a Marxist Democrat, has called the incarceration of criminals in the United States “racist.”
“We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence, we’ve already tried that, and we’ve ended up with the largest prison population in the world without solving the problems of crime and violence,” Johnson said during a press conference in August.
“The addiction on jails and incarceration in this country, we’ve moved past that. It is racist, it is immoral, it is unholy, and it is not the way to drive violence down.”
Johnson offered no solutions on how to solve the violence plaguing the city, only rhetoric.
Pritzker, who is rumored to consider his rotund self presidential material, has called the president’s proposals “unnecessary” and claims he is trying to push “authoritarianism” on the populace. It should be noted that during the pandemic, Pritzker was one of the most “authoritarian” governors in the country in putting draconian restrictions on his citizens. Pritzker also signed into law a measure that implemented no-bail policies and decriminalized numerous crimes.
“I have invested significantly in police, but we’ve also made massive investments in community violence intervention. Those programs are working [statistics say they’re not]. “We’re doing more than any other state in that regard, and it’s working on the streets of Chicago,” Pritzker said earlier this month.
Driven by rhetoric from Pritzker and Johnson, massive protests broke out in Chicago last weekend in opposition to the president’s proposal to save Chicagoans' lives.
The leftist-driven mob was also protesting against the administration’s mass deportation efforts, primarily targeting violent criminals.
President Trump has said he has an “obligation” to protect American citizens and criticized Chicago’s violent weekends as proof that the city needs federal assistance.
“Do you know how many people were killed in Chicago last weekend? Eight. You know how many people were killed in Chicago the week before? Seven. You know how many people were wounded? Seventy-four people were wounded. You think there’s worse than that? I don’t think so,” the president told reporters at the White House last Sunday.
In the D.C. operation, over 2,000 people have been arrested, a model for other cities, the administration says, while encouraging other cities to call the federal government for assistance.
Comments
2025-09-12T19:45-0400 | Comment by: James
OK Mr. Trump they just called your bluff! Are you President of the United States or not?! Maybe these two clowns and their criminal backers have bigger balls?!