Black Mayors Of Cities Trump Decries As 'Lawless' Tout Significant Declines In Violent Crimes

Members of the African American Mayors Association started noticing last year declines in violent crime in their cities.

As President Donald Trump declared Washington, D.C., a crime-ridden wasteland in need of federal intervention and threatened similar federal interventions in other Black-led cities, several mayors compared notes.

The president’s characterization of their cities contradicts what they began noticing last year: that they were seeing a drop in violent crime after a pandemic-era spike. In some cases the declines were monumental, due in large part to more youth engagement, gun buyback programs and community partnerships.

Now members of the African American Mayors Association are determined to stop Trump from burying accomplishments that they already felt were overlooked. And they’re using the administration’s unprecedented law enforcement takeover in the nation’s capital as an opportunity to disprove his narrative about some of the country’s greatest urban enclaves.

“It gives us an opportunity to say we need to amplify our voices to confront the rhetoric that crime is just running rampant around major U.S. cities. It’s just not true,” said Van Johnson, mayor of Savannah, Georgia, and president of the African American Mayors Association. “It’s not supported by any evidence or statistics whatsoever.”

After deploying the first of 800 National Guard members to Washington, the Republican president is setting his sights on other cities including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Oakland, California, calling them crime-ridden and “horribly run.” One thing they all have in common: They’re led by Black mayors.