Ted Williams on spikes in murder in major US cities
Is there a correlation between the unrest and murder rate in cities? Former D.C. detective Ted Williams weighs in.
“Community leaders need to lock arms with law enforcement,” Ted Williams, a former Washington D.C., police detective, told “Fox & Friends First” on Tuesday reacting to the increase in homicides and shootings in several cities across the country.
Williams, a Fox News contributor, also said it seems like “right now we are somewhat frozen in time.”
He added that the current situation is also affecting homicide investigations.
“You have law enforcement officers around this country where morale is terribly low in police departments and as a result of that, these crimes are not solved as fast as one would want them to have been solved,” Williams said.
Host Jillian Mele pointed to statistics from Minneapolis, Chicago and the New York City police, which showed that homicides in those cities are up 95 percent, 51 percent and 24 percent, respectively, compared with the same time last year.
CHICAGO POLICE TRYING TO COMBAT VIOLENCE LIMITED BY POLITICS-DRIVEN POLICY: FORMER CHIEF
Host Todd Piro noted statistics from the NYPD, and Chicago and Philadelphia police, which showed shootings in those cities have increased, respectively, by 69 percent, 47 percent and 55 percent.
Piro then asked Williams why he thinks “these violent crime numbers are going up.”
“When it comes to a spike in homicides there really is actually nothing that you can measure them by,” Williams said in response.
“Homicides are normally committed by people who are associated with each other,” he continued. “This has been really, clearly a long, hot summer and what we have found is [with] this virus [sic] people are very, closely and tightly woven and because of that, that is one of the reasons for the uptick in crimes in many of these metropolitan cities around this country.”
Piro also asked, “As police increasingly have their hands tied, what can community leaders do to stop this violence?”
“Community leaders need to lock arms with law enforcement,” Williams said in response.
He acknowledged that there are “some bad apples on the police force, but the majority of police officers are out here to serve and protect their community.”
“And so as a result of that, community leaders and members of any community need to lock arms with police officers to resolve crime,” Williams continued.
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He explained that the community “is somewhat afraid to turn these criminals in because they themselves may be harmed by the criminal so as a result of that there needs to be some assurance between the police department and community leaders helping to solve crimes in many of these metropolitan cities.”
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