NO NONSENSE: Detroit’s police chief calls out violent criminals as the real “urban terrorists”

Detroit’s Police Chief James Craig brooks no nonsense.  He is an experienced beat cop who has risen through the ranks over the years and knows how the real world works.  He’s more of a cop than a politician.

He’s already made headlines with his talk of encouraging civilians to arm themselves to thwart violent crime:

Chief Craig served nearly three decades in the Los Angeles Police Department, where “it took an act of Congress” to get permission to carry a gun. That’s how he once thought things ought to be done. He was a standard-issue big-city police official. Then he moved east to become the top cop in Portland, Maine, one of the safest cities he had ever been in and where many people own guns.

Suddenly, an epiphany. “Suspects knew that good Americans were armed,” he says. Now in Detroit, Chief Craig credits the decrease in crime in part to the “a number of [concealed-carry permit] holders running around the city of Detroit.” If more Detroit citizens were armed, Chief Craig told a news conference last week, criminals would think twice before attacking them.

After spending months and months advocating for locals to arm themselves, he is seeing fruitful results when it comes to bad guys picking on innocents:

Detroit has experienced 37 percent fewer robberies in 2014 than during the same period last year, 22 percent fewer break-ins of businesses and homes, and 30 percent fewer carjackings. Craig attributed the drop to better police work and criminals being reluctant to prey on citizens who may be carrying guns.

“Criminals are getting the message that good Detroiters are armed and will use that weapon,” said Craig, who has repeatedly said he believes armed citizens deter crime. “I don’t want to take away from the good work our investigators are doing, but I think part of the drop in crime, and robberies in particular, is because criminals are thinking twice that citizens could be armed.

“I can’t say what specific percentage is caused by this, but there’s no question in my mind it has had an effect,” Craig said.

There’s still a lot of gang-on-gang violence though.  After a fusilade of 47 shots fired last Saturday night, twelve people were left wounded at a basketball court in Detroit.  One died in the gang-related retaliation attack.

Chief Craig called the gang-banging thugs responsible “urban terrorists” and he called out the neighborhood’s “black community” for failing to help the police solve the crime.

Here’s a video of the straight-shooting chief talking with reporters (1:15 long).

And from the story at Mlive:

Detroit Police Chief James Craig said police need the community’s help to catch what he called urban terrorists who injured 11 and killed one in a rain of gunfire.

“You will allow this to continue if you do nothing,” Detroit Police Chief James Craig said in a plea to the community.

“It must stop now.”

Those comments from the chief didn’t sit well with so-called “black leaders”.   They publicly went after the chief.

Rev. Charles Williams II, president of the Detroit National Action Network, a civil rights group founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, said the label writes off the shooters without addressing the deeper issues.

“We want to make it very much known that the young people who are causing the violence in our community are not terrorists,” Williams said. “They are not urban terrorists, they are the products of bad urban policy.

“They are products of bad education policy, where our young people are used as products, versus being educated. They are products of the fact that you are dealing with a city with high poverty numbers, so to relate these young people as terrorists is wrong.”

Sam Riddle, a political consultant and National Action Network member who served time for accepting a bribe while working as the chief of staff to ex-Detroit Councilwoman Monica Conyers, referred to the chief as “Hollywood Craig” and said “urban terrorism is when state-sanctioned violence occurs through police brutality … “

Al Sharpton’s local minion is blaming poor urban policy, not poor urban parenting, for the rise of these violent teen thugs prowling the streets.  Self-responsibility must be an alien concept to this man.

Until and unless the black community quits sweeping its own problems under the rug in covering for criminals in their midst, the pervasive crime in their communities will continue.

Instead of lending positive energy to solving rampant violent crime – mostly black on black violent crime – the local Reverend Williams is tearing open old wounds, keeping them fresh and using his rhetorical hand grenades to keep himself relevant.

Chief Craig isn’t backing down:

“What should we call them,” Craig asked Monday evening. “I say it’s urban terrorism and if it offends someone, I’m not worried about it. It is what it is.

“And I say to the critics, when we were out there Sunday, I didn’t see any of them out of the grounds working with us side by side to come up with solutions … I’m sick and tired of dealing with the level of violence in some of our neighborhoods.”

Detroit police say the victims have not cooperated with detectives and no arrests have been made.

The Reverend Williams continues to dial up the rhetoric.  He even brought one of his “members” – an ex-con who went to prison for political corruption to add some gasoline to the flames.

Sam Riddle, a National Action Network member who served prison time for accepting a bribe while the chief of staff for ex-Councilwoman Monica Conyers, also spoke Monday.

He said he has a message for “Hollywood Craig.”

“Chief, understand something, urban terrorism is when state-sanctioned violence occurs through police brutality …,” Riddle said.

Who would have guessed Williams’ associate was a felon for political corruption, right?  Birds of a feather flock together, as they say.

Kudos to Chief Craig for taking the risky position of calling it like he sees it.  If that hurts the feelings of the poverty pimps, then so be it.