Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson evoked an unexpected name Monday while discussing the reason behind a spate of gun violence over the weekend — former President Richard Nixon.
Police said Monday that over 100 people had been shot — 19 fatally, including one police officer — over the July 4th holiday weekend across Chicago. Johnson hosted a press conference on Monday to address the incidents and more broadly Chicago’s problems with violence and crime, and appeared to claim that the reason the city is suffering from gun violence was because Nixon won in 1968 after then-President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to seek reelection.
“What we’ve experienced over the weekend is unacceptable and we didn’t get here overnight. And everyone knows that. Let’s tell the full story of what happened,” Johnson told reporters on Monday. “Black death has unfortunately been accepted in this country for a very long time.”
“We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes. And people mocked President Johnson, and we ended up with Richard Nixon.”
Johnson did not elaborate on his remarks about Nixon. He also spoke of what Chicago plans to do to crack down on gun violence, mourning the deaths of those fatally shot over the weekend and warning that “there will be will consequences” for the criminals responsible, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I will not stand idly by. We will not be passive in this moment,” he told reporters. “We need to ensure that we are holding every single individual accountable for the pain and trauma and the torment that they have caused in this city. There will be consequences for the violence. We will not let criminal activity ruin and harm our city.”
Although Chicago had a small reduction in crime in 2023, it still has one of the worst crime rates of any city in the country, according to the World Population Review. Violent crime rose to a 12-year high in 2023; homicide rates have thus far dropped in 2024 but are still considerably higher than rates in 2014, according to CBS News.
Vehicle thefts dropped in 2023 but were still over twice as high as they were in mid-2022, according to CBS News. Armed robbery rates jumped 24% in 2023 from the year prior.
Despite widespread crime, arrest rates remain generally low, according to CBS News.
“We are here to say emphatically that this is enough. It’s enough. When this reckless violence ravages across our city at this magnitude, we are losing a piece of the soul of Chicago. It deeply pains me to admit that, but it is true,” Johnson told reporters on Monday.
Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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