A top Homeland Security Department official says escalating crime in U.S. cities is the product of years of failed leadership coming to a boil.
“This is part and parcel of decades, decades of uninterrupted liberal policies implemented in cities. This is the result,” said acting DHS Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli on Fox News’s America’s News Headquarters on Sunday.
Dozens of major cities across the country have faced an increase in violent crime and homicides this year.
A recent analysis by the Wall Street Journal reported nearly three-fourths of the top 50 largest cities in the United States have experienced a double-digit rise in murders so far in 2020. In addition to homicides, 36 out of 50 cities have also seen a rise in shootings and gun violence.
Increased violence prompted the federal government to partner with local law enforcement agencies in order to help corral the surge in crime.
Cuccinelli argued poor leadership in mostly “blue” cities has resulted in a number of other social consequences, including the breakdown of families.
“Other results are dysfunctional families and so forth that you associate with criminal behavior,” he said, adding, “The statistics you’re talking about aren’t criminal rioters. That’s just elevated gang violence and drug violence and so forth that we see and fight every day at both the federal and local-level in partnership that’s escalating in those communities, exactly the ones who need police, by the way, the most.”
