Trump wants ‘stop and frisk’ in Chicago
straighten out the terrible shooting wave.” He also encouraged the city to embrace the stop-and-frisk policing method, in which large numbers of people are temporarily detained, questioned and sometimes searched for drugs and weapons.
It was used extensively in New
York City until it was deemed unconstitutional because of its impact on minority residents.
“Gotta be properly applied, but stop-and-frisk works,” said Trump, who had traveled to Orlando with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Chicago police said last week that there have been 102 fewer homicides and nearly 500 fewer shooting victims in the city this year, compared with the first nine months of 2017.
The city of Chicago reached an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois in 2015 to curb stop-and-frisk procedures after the ACLU threatened to file a lawsuit over the issue. The ACLU said the police inordinately targeted blacks.
A spokesman for Mayor Rahm Emanuel blasted Trump for reviving criticism of the city’s homicide rate and the agreement with the ACLU.
“Even someone as clueless as Donald Trump has to know stopand-frisk is simply not the solution to crime,” Matt Mcgrath said in an emailed statement.
The ACLU of Illinois’ Karen Sheley said Trump’s comments were neither accurate nor helpful. The Trump administration has consistently “encouraged strong-arm tactics and unconstitutional practices by police,” she said, adding, “The solutions to violence in Chicago are not going to come from Donald Trump.”