Liberals hate the idea of stronger police forces in the nation's cities because it "involves actually empowering the police," and the idea that the Justice Department issued a report this week blaming the use of strict policing for violence in Baltimore is "totally crazy," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday.
"We know how to have strict policing," Gingrich told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "New York did it under [Rudy] Giuliani and continued to do it under [Michael] Bloomberg. They have brought down the murder rate by 85 percent."
In Chicago alone, the murder rates have continued to climb since President Barack Obama was sworn into office in 2008, continued Gingrich, who wrote an opinion piece for FoxNews.com Friday calling for safety for all Americans.
"Since Obama was sworn in, over 3,400 people have been killed in Chicago, Gingrich told the Fox and Friends program. "That's more than our total death rate in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The answer is very straightforward. You have to insist on safe neighborhoods, have adequate policing. Chicago needs a lot more police. They don't have enough police to create safety."
In his opinion piece, Gingrich complained that Democrats have just one answer for Americans who live in the nation's violent inner cities: gun control.
"Of course, Chicago already has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country," Gingrich writes. "They haven't stopped the violence, and if Democrats succeeded in passing one more gun control law, there is little doubt that would fail as well. So in truth, the Democrats have no answer to this crisis at all.
GOP nominee Donald Trump and Republicans do have an "opportunity and an obligation" to offer another future for inner city residents, however, Gingrich writes, calling for a return to policies that have worked in the past.
"The practical policing methods pioneered by Bill Bratton in New York City made it the safest large city in America," said Gingrich. "Over the past 23 years, murder has dropped in New York by 83 percent, and the success of Bratton's methods have been replicated in other cities throughout the country."
Gingrich acknowledged that police officers could potentially make mistakes if more strict policies go into place, as there would be more interactions with the public, and said there would need to be more training and transparency in the nation's law enforcement community.
"There is not an acceptable level of police misconduct," he wrote, "and there is not an acceptable level of violent crime."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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