A week after Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said he believed police in Chicago could stop the increasing levels of violence in the city by being “much tougher” — and implied there was a way to accomplish this feat in a week — the city’s police superintendent responded by urging him to offer any “magic bullet” he may have.Trump has repeatedly invoked the bloodshed in Chicago while on the campaign trail, part of an overall effort he has made to frame himself as the candidate of law and order in his race against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. During public appearances and on social media, Trump repeatedly — and oftentimes misleadingly — cites crime levels and describes a country beset by violence and lawlessness.
In particular, he has referenced Chicago and the gun violence there, using the city as a synecdoche for rising homicide levels in some cities across the country. Last week, during an appearance on Fox News, Trump again talked about Chicago and claimed that an unnamed “top police officer” in the city had told him that there was a way to stop the violence in a week. (The Chicago police said that neither Trump nor anyone from his campaign met with any senior command staff; a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign declined to identify this officer, only describing him as a “private individual.”)
On Sunday, during a news conference discussing the two brothers charged in the shooting death of Nykea Aldridge, cousin of NBA star Dwyane Wade, the Chicago police superintendent was asked about Trump’s comments.
“If you have a magic bullet to stop the violence anywhere, not just in Chicago but in America, then please, share it with us,” Superintendent Eddie Johnson, the city’s actual top police officer, said at the briefing. “We’d be glad to take that information and stop this violence.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/29/chicago-police-to-trump-if-you-have-a-magic-bullet-to-stop-the-violence-let-us-know/?utm_term=.83af2ac6b70e