In a contentious news conference last a few days ago, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) was asked about crime in her city, which has developed such a bad reputation that it’s informally known as Chiraq. When Newsmax’s William Kelly listed a series of horrific recent incidents, such as the execution-style killing of a young couple, the random stabbing death of a tourist, and a rash of recent shootings, Mayor Lightfoot made a brazen claim that crime in Chicago is actually on the decline.

“Crime is not out of control in our city,” Lightfoot shot back in a back-and-forth that was contentious at times. “In fact, crime is on the decline. All of our major indices show a decline in our crime and our homicides and our shootings year over year are down; that’s a fact, sir.”

That’s an astounding Baghdad Bob level of denialism and fabrication.

A quick review of the data shows what everyone but Lightfoot knows. Per the Chicago Sun Times, homicides this year have already clocked 317, as compared to 302 homicides at this time in 2020. 

Even if you discount the media’s recent chicanery in redefining a mass shooting from an incident in which four or more people are killed to one in which four or more people are shot, the data doesn’t look pretty. Per the Chicago Sun Times (Archive link):

Last week, Chicago was hit by two mass shootings: four killed and four wounded in an Englewood home; and five people wounded in a shooting in West Garfield Park.

The above data from the Chicago Sun Times is affirmed by the Chicago Tribune, which recently reported: (Archived link), 

“In Chicago, 1,587 people have been shot this year. That is 195 more than 2020.”

Carjackings are also off the charts this year (Archive links), after starting out slow in January.

In all, 708 carjacking’s were reported from the beginning of 2021 until June 13, compared to 416 during the same period last year, according to police statistics.

Lest we forget, Chicago police ask victims to cooperate with criminals during carjackings (archive link), and even when they do, they sometimes get killed out of sheer spite because the criminal doesn’t know how to drive a stick shift.

Clearly, Mayor Lightfoot is innumerate, ill-informed, a liar or a combination thereof. Her track record has been one of shirking her duties, coddling criminals, drawing false equivalences, blaming innocent parties, while infringing on the rights of the law-abiding (and intermingling it with some plain ol’ racism).

With a toxically idiotic criminal justice strategy like that, is anyone surprised how awful Chicago and other cities around the country are?

Ranjit Singh is an Indian immigrant and a proud naturalized citizen of the United States. He is a co-author of “Each One, Teach One: Preserving and protecting the Second Amendment in the 21st century and beyond.” You can follow him on Twitter @AuthorSingh.)