Richard Smith, the police chief in Kansas City, Missouri, predicted Saturday that the recent surge in violent crime in his city would continue for some time, and defended the presence of federal authorities to counter violent protests in the city.
Smith said Kansas City had a 38 percent increase in homicides and nearly 347 people shot during the year. By the end of the year, she predicted that the city would see “about 700 people” being shot.
“I don’t see this going down, at least in Kansas City, anytime soon,” he said on “Cavuto Live.”
“Even last night, we had – again, we started out very peaceful during the day and when night comes, then we started to see property damage and other things happening. So here we made some arrests last night for property damage here at headquarters. So I think we’re going to see a little bit more of this, I hope people understand that in police departments across the country, we all want to facilitate peaceful protests, that’s not a problem. “
Smith said problems began to arise when the protests became less peaceful. His comments came amid widespread protests surrounding the death of George Floyd.
THE CITY OF KANSAS HAS SEEN NEARLY 100 HOMICIDES THIS YEAR, ON TRACK FOR THE HAPPIEST YEAR ON RECORD
In Portland, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deployed federal officials to deal with the riots. That sparked a backlash from Democratic politicians, who accused the Trump administration of using inappropriate techniques while arresting protesters. Earlier on the show, Acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan emphatically told Fox News presenter Neil Cavuto that the tactics used were “absolutely necessary.”
Cavuto asked Smith about the federal government’s efforts in his own city.
“So what we have in Kansas City is that we have federal agents coming here. This will be mostly behind the scenes, investigative, chasing violent criminals that are on our streets today. And the goal is to reduce those – that’s the population , who is shooting guns in our city, to stop the violence. So it’s going to be a very surgical look at crime in Kansas City. It’s not a broad look at crime, so for my point here in Kansas City I don’t know much about the truth on stage in Portland, but I do know it will be a very focused effort, “Smith said.
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Referring to federal authorities, he added, “We have these people in Kansas City every day. We work with them hand in hand every day. We sit next to FBI agents, ATF agents, US sheriffs. DA, we sit next to them every day, so this is nothing different in our city from what happens here every day. “
“We are getting more resources to come to our city to help in this violent crime, so those resources that we have every day, the public may or may not have any interaction with them. If you are not involved in that type of violence or in That area of criminal activity, you wouldn’t know that they were here for the most part. So, I imagine it’s the same when more resources come in. “
