Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is pushing back against President Donald Trump’s latest remarks about crime in America’s cities, and he’s not ignoring what he calls “a very notable” pattern in who the president chooses to single out.
This week, Trump announced that he would take federal control of Washington, D.C.’s police department and deploy the National Guard for at least 30 days, claiming the nation’s capital had been “overtaken by violent gangs” and “roving mobs of wild youth.” The move comes despite the Justice Department confirming earlier this year that violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low.
During his announcement, Trump also name-checked other major “blue cities,” Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, and Oakland, all of which happen to have Black mayors. As The Quintessential Gentleman previously reported, many of these same cities are experiencing historic drops in violent crime under their current leadership.
“It’s notable” who he calls out
Speaking on CNN, Scott said the president’s rhetoric doesn’t align with the facts.
“D.C.’s violent crime is at a 13-year low. And quite frankly, that’s the case for cities around the country,” Scott said. “I think it’s very notable that each and every one of the cities called out by the president has a Black mayor. And most of those cities are seeing historic lows in violent crime.”
In Baltimore, Scott says the city is on track for the fewest homicides through this date in over 50 years, a milestone he credits to collaborative, community-based strategies.
“The way to drive down violence in cities has been proven,” Scott explained. “Mayors across the country have brought together law enforcement, the legal community, the actual community, and community violence intervention work to reduce violence to lows we have not seen in decades. The president could learn a lot from us instead of throwing things at us.”
Rejecting “military solutions”
Scott also criticized Trump’s decision to put troops on D.C. streets, calling it an outdated approach that ignores the successes of modern crime reduction strategies.
“Maybe we are too far gone from the broken right-wing policies of zero-tolerance policing and all the things that did not make our city safer for all those many years,” Scott said. “But we know that having the military there is not the way to do it.”
For Scott and other Black mayors across the country, the data tells a very different story from the one Trump is pushing. And while the president’s rhetoric may grab headlines, these mayors say their results are proving that public safety can be achieved without heavy-handed federal intervention.
