Garry McCarthy, the former superintendent of the Chicago Police Department who was fired in 2015, says that the rising murder rates in Chicago are due to the Black Lives Matter movement.
On Sunday, McCarthy told “The Cats Roundtable” radio show that an “atmosphere of anti-police sentiment” caused by protesters against police brutality led to the circumstances that have allowed the murder rates to rise to historic levels in 2016.
“So what’s happening, and this is ironic, is that a movement with the goal of saving black lives at this point is getting black lives taken, because 80 percent of our murder victims here in Chicago are male blacks,” McCarthy said.
–Chicago residents reflect on city’s deadliest year in decades–
He then went on to claim that the Black Lives Matter movement was encouraging people not to cooperate with police officers. “It’s legitimizing that non-compliance,” he said.
Going on to describe the movement as promoting a “state of lawlessness,” McCarthy added, “The simplest way to describe it is that we have created an environment where we have emboldened criminals and we are hamstringing the police.”
“Chicago is probably the worst example of something that has happened across the country,” he added.
McCarthy said that he was “hopeful” the issue would be resolved by the upcoming administration of Donald Trump.
“I think the Trump election quite frankly is a reaction to that,” he said. “I think the people are tired of career politicians who’ve never really had a job telling us how we should think and how we should act.”