Retired NYPD Lt. reacts after White House touts record crime record: 'I beg to differ'
Retired NYPD Lieutenant Darrin Porcher discussed crime records after the Biden Administration bragged about a record decrease in crime in the first half of 2024.
Former law enforcement reacted after the Biden administration touted that their policies resulted in a 50-year low of violent crime.
Former NYPD Lieutenant Darrin Porcher argued that the White House cherry-picked crime statistics in order to say that crime in America is at a record low.
"I am a firm believer in statistics or at the behest of the beholder, meaning that if you are the person that's the holder of statistics, you can chart a course that better fits the bill for what you're trying to express," he told Fox News Digital.
"That is clearly what the White House is doing in this particular article," Porcher said. "But it just doesn't take a quantitative genius to identify that crime is up."
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"But it just doesn't take a quantitative genius to identify that crime is up."
Retired NYPD officer discussed the White House's recent revealing how they are fighting crime in the U.S.
Porcher said that realistically that there has been a "meteoric rise" in the past three years under Biden's leadership.
"There's been a meteoric rise in crime over the last three years under the Biden administration, as we relate to either the migrant crisis, violent crimes that are occurring in the cities or the counties that common citizens live in," he said.
"Perception is key," Porcher said. "Whenever we as a public perceive that crime is higher, that is when it is incumbent on the government to enforce the rule of law."
Chicago police vehicles at crime scene. (FOX32 Chicago WFLD)
Porcher said that the Department of Justice quantitated crime in America with the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The report, Porcher said, does not give the "full picture" of crime since it reports all recorded crimes and does not follow it through the resolution.
"You have many instances where a person reports a crime saying that their car was stolen, but then they find it maybe 2 or 3 days later and it wasn't stolen, they just forgot where they parked in," he said. "That crime is already listed on the Uniform Crime Report. There's no one that goes back and places an addendum it."
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Porcher said that the UCR can be used to manipulate crime data either favorably or unfavorably.
"The UCR Uniform Crime Report can be skewed in a direction that's either favorable or unfavorable in terms of the increase or the decrease in crime. And this is what the White House is touting as the standard-bearer," he said. "I beg to differ because we need a more qualitative approach."
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended President Biden's record on the border before blaming Republicans and former President Trump for not allowing the president to hire more border patrol agents. (White House)
In a press release, the White House contributed the record low crime to the administration's American Rescue Plan. The plan provided funding to invest $15 billion in law enforcement and public safety.
The White House also bragged that Biden signed the "most significant gun violence legislation in nearly 30 years."
Porcher argued that the administration's implementation of "red flag laws" – gun control legislation that allows people to petition courts for a civil order to temporarily suspend a person's access to firearms – may not be the best course of action for the U.S.
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"I think that gun control means well, but I don't believe that it works, because in the United States, we have more guns and people," he said. "You're closing the gate after the horse has already escaped."
"I genuinely believe the best course of action in terms of reducing gun violence is to have the necessary interdiction by law enforcement, meaning enforce the laws that are on the books. If you're enforcing the laws that are on the books, then you're going to gain precipitous drops in gun violence," he said. "But if you rely upon merely the gun control method, it's only going to allow criminals to acquire firearms, and the law abiding citizens deterred."
A New York City Police (NYPD) car as seen on March 18, 2016. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)
The former NYPD lieutenant said that "history is the best teller of what lies in the future," and to consider the result of progressive agendas in major U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.
"When we speak to what's happening in the larger cities, history is the best teller of what lies in the future," he said. "If you don't pay attention, you're going to embark upon the same mistakes that happened in the past."
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"So, when we look at a lot of the larger cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, we clearly see there's a consistent narrative that is a progressive agenda that does not move towards punishing criminals," he said. "But it seems that law abiding citizens are the recipients of a miscarriage of justice."
"Criminals are being provided with more rights, and fewer rights are being forwarded to us as common citizens," Porcher said.
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