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Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Clarence Page: Trump's D.C. law enforcement takeover only making matters worse
When your only tool is a hammer, psychiatrist Abraham Maslow famously observed, all problems begin to look like nails. That nugget of wisdom comes to mind as President Donald Trump implements his federal takeover of the District of Columbia's police force and the deployment of 800 National Guard, a big hammer against local crime problems in a city he described as 'overrun by violent gangs, blood thirsty criminals, roving mobs of youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people.' Saying the troops will be armed and have the ability to conduct arrests if needed, Trump promised to 'have the crime situation solved in D.C. very soon.' And that's just the beginning, he says, of a wave of similar moves that he wants to implement in Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Oakland and other cities, in accordance with his long-running war on urban crime. 'It has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World. It will soon be one of the safest!!!' Trump said of the nation's capital in a Saturday Truth Social post, pledging action that will 'essentially, stop violent crime in Washington, D.C.' Yet, not surprisingly, local reaction to this bizarre project has been mixed In the federal city. While the early days of the action were mostly peaceful, one Justice Department employee was arrested for allegedly throwing a sandwich at a federal law enforcement officer Sunday evening. Not nice. According to the District of Columbia U.S. attorney's office, the man who 'forcefully threw' the wrapped hoagie at a Customs and Border Protection officer was himself a (now ex-) employee of the U.S. Department of Justice, Sean Charles Dunn, 37. Dunn allegedly threw the sandwich after pointing his finger at the officer and shouting, 'F— you! You f—ing fascists! Why are you here? I don't want you in my city!' He was charged with 'assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and employees of the United States.' After being taken to the cop shop, according to the DOJ, Dunn admitted: 'I did it. I threw a sandwich.' Attorney General Pam Bondi wasn't going to put up with such nonsense. 'If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you,' Bondi posted on X Thursday. 'This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ.' Those of us outside the MAGA movement might question how much of a disturbance of the peace sandwich-throwing will cause. But Trump's crackdown apparently was born on the heels of a more serious crime, an attempted carjacking. Edward 'Big Balls' Coristine, 19, rose to prominence as a feisty member of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was put to work slashing the size of the federal bureaucracy after Trump came into office. Coristine was attacked and bloodied in Washington's Logan Circle neighborhood by a group of teenagers trying to carjack him and a female companion early in the morning on Aug. 3. A 15-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy were taken to juvenile detention, accused of the assault which, not surprisingly, outraged Trump, who said on Aug. 5, 'somebody from DOGE was very badly hurt last night.' He also shared a photo of a bloodied Coristine on Truth Social, adding, 'If D.C. doesn't get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City.' As a past victim of street crime myself, my sympathies go out to Coristine. I'm glad that a couple of suspects were caught, and I hope they are handled fairly. But locking up a couple of teens is only a small part of the larger long-term and short-term challenges posed by problems as complex as big-city crime. I don't believe in 'coddling criminals,' as some conservatives might say. But I do believe in effective law enforcement and sensible crime prevention that can bring and maintain the safe streets we all should be seeking. As a group of prominent Washington religious leaders said in their joint criticism of Trump's drastic takeover of the District's police force, his typically hyperbolic rhetoric could only make bad matters worse in the fight against crime. As their joint statement put it, the offenses are serious but won't be helped by the military, 'political theater' or fear-based governance. No, when your only tool in fighting violence inflames more divisions, you only invite more problems. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Letters: Any illusion that DC residents have the same rights as others has been shattered
As a proud Chicagoan for almost 47 years, I admit I took political representation for granted. I could engage in vigorous discussions and vote for the senators and congresswomen-and-men who shared my beliefs. Now, however, I live in our nation's capital and no longer have voting representation in Congress. In fact, D.C. residents could not even vote for the president until 1964. I love D.C. and have immersed myself in making the city even better after being elected as a volunteer advisory neighborhood commissioner, representing approximately 2,000 of my neighbors to D.C.'s government. I told myself that D.C. enjoyed microlevel democracy at its best, despite the fact that laws passed by the Council of District of Columbia can be overturned at the whim of an antagonistic U.S. Congress, that serious crimes are pursued by a presidentially selected U.S. Attorney rather than by a locally elected D.C. attorney general, and that the judges who hear these cases also are presidential appointees rather than being elected with local accountability. However, last week, any illusions of being a U.S. citizen with the same rights as others was shattered. Based on the lie that crime in D.C. represented a pressing federal emergency, despite declining by 26% this year and reaching a 30-year low, President Donald Trump considered federalizing the D.C. police and called out the National Guard (The only guard not under the jurisdiction of a local governor.) D.C. achieved this progress in tamping down violent crime, despite having locally sourced (not federally funded) FY 25 budget funds frozen, without cause, by Congress, despite numerous judicial vacancies awaiting federal appointment, and despite curtailment of federal funding for effective violence interruption, re-entry and other crime reduction programs. '] Since I have no voting representatives in Congress, I ask those of you in other states to reach out to your representatives and ask them to support the home rule and voting rights of D.C.'s citizens. Make no mistake, the federal police state mentality that has been imposed in D.C. will not stop with D.C. Unless we push back, it will expand and squash many of the constitutionally granted rights reserved for we the crime has dropped dramatically over the past few decades, with only brief spikes from events like the pandemic. This secular trend is welcome, but its causes remain debated. What's clear is that it has nothing to do with the increasingly cruel and chaotic immigration policies being proposed and implemented by Trump. His campaign promised mass deportations, yet data shows that only 7% of those targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been convicted of violent crimes — and 65% have no criminal record at all. It's also well established that immigrants, especially undocumented ones, commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens. Despite this, Trump continues to describe major cities — especially Democratic ones like Washington, D.C. — as crime-ridden hellholes only he can rescue. In reality, violent crime is falling there too, as CNN's recent fact check of his illegal takeover attempt of D.C. law enforcement confirmed. Even his own FBI director admitted the steep drop in violent crime. We must anticipate the narrative he's building: that any drop in crime is thanks to his harsh immigration stance. He's done this before — taking credit for stock market gains that preceded his presidency. If we don't challenge the false narrative about immigrant crime now, people may believe that abusing immigrants somehow made America safer. It didn't. And it won' federal police agencies are in the nation's capital to repel violent crime, the subject of homelessness has come to the fore. Not long ago, tent cities were largely associated with impoverished third-world nations and no American city would allow tents on sidewalks or parks without a permit. These new shantytowns are plagued with substance abuse, violence and prostitution. Streets have become littered with rotting garbage, human waste, discarded needles and rats, and have become breeding grounds for infectious diseases. As the most prosperous nation on earth, we have an obligation to provide shelter to anyone in need. Government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and charities should be tasked with providing inexpensive open-bay shelter to anyone in need. Anyone truly in need would be grateful for such an arrangement. Public intoxication must be grounds for arrest. We will save lives of those whose cycle of dependency has been perpetuated in these dystopian settings. The status quo does not represent any sense of compassion and is a stain on happened, I agree with Trump. He has declared America's largest cities to be ravaged with crime. He uses a less delicate, scatologic term when describing them. People whom I tell I lived in Chicago until permanently retiring to Florida in my 80s, no longer comment about my good fortune escaping the cold weather or crooked politicians. It's now all about escaping violent crime. Back in the 1960s, when I was a member of the National Guard in Illinois and later Washington, D.C., my units were activated after neighborhoods erupted in violence. I believed the new normal would be civil unrest and my unit and others would be routinely activated. Eventually things calmed down and to my knowledge the National Guard has largely been domestically used during weather events such as hurricanes and floods. Although large-scale riots are now a rarity, warm weather and those enjoying the beaches, parks and festivities of summer and just the warmer weather are at risk of well-armed criminals robbing businesses and assaulting those out for a nice evening. Inclement winter months tamp down and inhibit much local violence. I see nothing wrong and everything good about National Guard units being deployed to areas where citizens and visitors desire but fear to be. Saturating unsafe areas with cruisers and vans containing members of the National Guard and deploying unarmed members with radio devices to stroll through popular well visited areas is likely a good deterrent against violence. That's why police vehicles and officers patrol. Very little creates more comfort for citizens and discomfort for criminals than the threat of lawbreakers getting caught.I would prefer that the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board not presume to tell me what God does and does not do. The editorial of August 12, 'God does not gerrymander' was offensive. That the board does not gerrymander is fine with me. But to take issue with the Rev. Michael Pfleger and the congregation of St. Sabina, a man and a people who have put their lives on the line time and time again to defend democracy as it exists in their neighborhood and their beliefs, is beyond arrogance. 'Politics is about power.' So, it would appear, are newspaper editors. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
NBC News
2 hours ago
- NBC News
Ukraine left scrambling as Trump shifts toward Putin after Alaska summit
LONDON — Ukraine and its allies were scrambling Sunday to respond to President Donald Trump's apparent shift toward Vladimir Putin's hardline position after their summit in Alaska. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy, set to visit Washington on Monday, warned that the Russian leader was complicating efforts to end the war by refusing to halt the brutal fighting before holding further talks. "Russia rebuffs numerous calls for a ceasefire and has not yet determined when it will stop the killing. This complicates the situation," Zelenskyy said in a post on X late Saturday. He added that he would have calls with allies in the day ahead as he prepares for his meeting with Trump. His remarks came as Trump signaled he was reversing his insistence on a ceasefire and instead pursuing a permanent peace deal — aligning the United States with the Kremlin rather than Kyiv and its European backers. Zelenskyy's message was accompanied by a joint statement from the leaders of eight Nordic and Baltic countries, stressing that a lasting peace 'requires a ceasefire,' while calling for 'credible security guarantees for Ukraine.' That is one area where Trump appears to have taken a step toward a position more aligned with the wishes of Ukraine and Europe. Trump directly engaged with Zelenskyy and European leaders by phone early Saturday morning about the U.S. taking part in a potential NATO-like security guarantee for Ukraine as part of a deal with Russia, two senior administration officials and three sources familiar with the discussions told NBC News. 'European and American security guarantees were discussed,' one source familiar with the discussions said. 'U.S. troops on the ground was not discussed or entertained by [Trump].' The security guarantees would be made in the scenario that Russia were to invade Ukraine, again, after a would-be peace deal, the sources said. The sources said that those protections, as discussed by the White House, would not include NATO membership — despite European leaders saying in a joint statement Saturday that Ukraine should be given the right to seek NATO membership. As Ukraine and Europe work out how to navigate these dramatic shifts from Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will Sunday jointly chair a virtual meeting of the so-called 'coalition of the willing,' which includes more than 30 countries working together to support Ukraine. For civilians on the ground, still under Russian attack even as the diplomatic maneuvering played out, it was not just the substance but the optics of the Alaska summit that caused frustration. 'I was hoping that the U.S. wouldn't roll out the red carpet to the enemy,' Kyiv resident Natalya Lypei said Saturday. 'How can you welcome a tyrant like this?'
