Trump Finally Sends In The Feds To Chicago

CHICAGO, IL — It was the tweet heard 'round the world — or at least heard 'round Chicago. Only days into his presidency in late January, President Donald Trump delivered a Twitter ultimatum to leaders and elected officials when it came to addressing the city's epidemic of gun violence: "If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible 'carnage' going on … I will send in the Feds!"

Nearly six months later, the president finally followed through with his promise. Around 20 additional agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been detached to Chicago to help city law enforcement battle the continuing shootings and crime, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Those agents will join 35 to 40 ATF agents who already were working in Chicago. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Chicago — or your neighborhood. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

The move isn't simply being done to bolster the number of law enforcement personnel in the city. The additional agents will be part of a joint task force with the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Police that will use ballistics technology to combat gun violence.

Earlier this week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Supt. Eddie Johnson and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, discussed the unit while touring ATF's National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) van, a state-of-the-art mobile forensic lab available to the task force.

"We’ve been doing this all along, but now it’s being amped up," ATF spokesman Dave Coulson told the Sun-Times. "It’s a more concerted effort."

But Coulson said the detachment of agents isn't just a quick fix for Chicago, the report added.

"It’s long term," he said. "They’re here permanently. It’s not a flash-in-the-pan concept where they come here for a year and leave."

With the ATF agents finally sent in to Chicago, Trump announced the move he had pledged to do in January.

"Crime and killings in Chicago have reached such epidemic proportions that I am sending in Federal help. 1714 shootings in Chicago this year!" he wrote on his account Friday morning.

RELATED: Trump's 'Send In The Feds' Threat: Chicago Officials Would Welcome Help, But Not The National Guard

The number of shootings in 2017 referenced by Trump, however, is lower than the statistics cited elsewhere. According to the Chicago Tribune, at least 1,760 people had been shot as of Friday morning. The Chicago Sun-Times reported 1,737 shooting victims so far this year.

In both cases, the total number of shootings is lower than it was the same time last year, the Tribune reports. The number of murders, however, is at around the same level as it was in 2016. Through Thursday, there were 320 killings in Chicago; 2016 saw 322 murders during the same time frame, the Sun-Times reports.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions echoed Trump's sentiment, saying in a statement Friday that the administration "will not let the bloodshed go on; we cannot accept these levels of violence." Sessions also used the announcement of the additional ATF agents as an opportunity to to blast Emanuel and other civic leaders for remaining steadfast in maintaining Chicago's sanctuary city status as a safe haven for undocumented immigrants.

“So-called 'sanctuary' policies tie the hands of law enforcement by rejecting common sense and undermining federal laws that would remove criminal, illegal aliens from the streets and remove them from this country," he said in a statement.

The attorney general wasn't the only member of the Trump administration who focused on the societal aspects of crime in Chicago while police and federal law enforcement officials zeroed in on the city's gun problem. During a White House press briefing Friday afternoon, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said "morality" was at the heart of Chicago's crime epidemic when asked if the ATF-local law enforcement task force was an acknowledgement by the Trump administration that the city is plagued by too many firearms.

"I think that the problem there is pretty clear that its a crime problem," she said. "I think crime is probably driven more by morality than anything else. So I think that this is a law enforcement issue, and our focus is trying to add additional support.

"We've talked to people on a local level and asked for their input on how we best can be helpful, and thats exactly what were trying to do," Sanders added. "That's something the president talked about pretty extensively, and he's focused on trying to help the people in Chicago."

But some city officials question just how committed Trump is when it comes to working with the city.

“If the president was as interested in taking action on public safety as he is in tweeting about it, we would have seen these resources months ago," Adam Collins, a spokesman for the mayor's office, told the Sun-Times on Friday.

WATCH: Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Supt. Eddie Johnson and other officials tour the ATF's National Integrated Ballistic Information Network van Monday.

More via the Chicago Sun-Times

UPDATED (7:17 p.m. Friday, June 30)

Photo via the Chicago Police Department

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