CHICAGO (NewsNation) — President Donald Trump on Monday referred to Chicago as a “killing field” even though homicides in the nation’s third-largest city have dropped by more than 30% since last year.
However, for those who call Chicago home, whether Trump’s pledge to deploy federal troops here is needed remains up for debate.
Trump has suggested that he will likely deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, similar to the way he has in Washington, D.C., in recent weeks. But both Chicago’s Democratic mayor, Brandon Johnson, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, also a Democrat, have said troops are not needed in the city, where homicides are down by 31%, shooting incidents have been reduced by 36% and crimes like robbery, burglary and car thefts are all down by between 21 and 36%, according to the Chicago Police Department.
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Johnson called Trump’s insistence on deploying troops to Chicago a flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution, calling it illegal.
However, despite the drops in violent crimes that leaders are touting, crime remains an issue in Chicago, where smaller offenses such as the smash-and-grab burglary of a Foot Locker store over the weekend continue to concern business owners and residents alike.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (R) smiles at Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson during a 2024 United States Secret Service Democratic National Convention security briefing in 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Vincent Alban/Getty Images)
Two other Foot Locker stores were burglarized last week, and a Nordstrom store in Chicago’s River North neighborhood was also targeted on Sunday. Meanwhile, Chicago police have warned residents on the city’s South Side to be on alert after 16 home break-ins targeting elderly residents have been reported recently.
Former Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told NewsNation on Monday that he believes city officers “are OK” with National Guard troops being sent in “as long as it’s done in a proper way.”
“If President Trump is truly thinking of helping the city of Chicago, as well as other places around the country, that’s fine,” Johnson said. “But you have to have the local jurisdictions direct the way in which the federal people are deployed.”
Despite that, Johnson has continued to push back on Trump’s assertion that city police need assistance from the National Guard.
“This is not the role of the military,” Johnson told reporters. “The brave men and women who signed up to serve our country did not sign up to occupy American cities. This is costly, illegal and unconstitutional.”
Pritzker, whom Trump referred to as a “slob,” called Trump’s characterization of what is happening in Chicago as “manufactured.”
“This is exactly the type of overreach that our country’s founders warned against,” Pritzker said on Monday, adding, “What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal, it is unconstitutional, it is un-American.”
Pritzker said that no one from the White House or the Trump administration has reached out to him or to Johnson and said the state and city have made no requests for federal intervention.
“This is not about fighting crime,” the governor said. “This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the national military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try to intimidate his political rivals.”
Pritzker said he is speaking out as a way of telling Trump that his proposed deployment will make local officials’ job harder and the lives of residents’ worse.
But as elected officials continue to dispute the need for the presence of troops on Chicago streets, residents are split on what they say is needed.
Imani Williams told NewsNation that she just lost a friend during a deadly mass shooting and that her child’s father has also been shot over the past two years. She said that she has experienced grief, emotional distress and pain due to the ongoing violence in Chicago.
“I think (Trump) needs to send them right away,” Williams told NewsNation. “It’s just a lot going on, and it’s like, the people are against the police, and we need to bring reinforcements in to establish law and order because it’s crazy out here.”
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Others disagree.
“There’s crime all over. It’s not just Chicago,” Chicagoan Joanne Johnson told NewsNation. “But I don’t think it’s something that deserves the National Guard being here. I think that’s ridiculous, and I think it’s all political.”
Johnson, the former police superintendent, told NewsNation that local citizens want to be safe, but “safe in the right way.”
“You start to use and utilize military to start to patrol the streets of your city, then you’re going to have a problem with the community at large because there’s a lot of effort put forth to repair that relationship (between residents and law enforcement) and just putting armed military on the streets won’t do the trick. It just won’t,” he said.
Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also took aim at Trump’s plans to deploy federal troops. Lightfoot wrote on X that Trump is using the threat of sending troops to Chicago as a “distraction game” and that Chicagoans “don’t take well to being threatened.”
“Keep Chicago out of your mouth,” Lightfoot wrote.
