The Richard Nixon Foundation slammed Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson after the Democrat placed the blame for crime in his city on the man who served in the White House – 40 years ago.
The Daily Mail reported that Johnson sparked backlash following the July Fourth holiday weekend – where 19 were killed and over 100 were injured by shootings in Chicago – after he cited Nixon as a ‘root cause’ of the crimewave.
‘Black death has unfortunately been accepted in this country for a very long time,’ he said at a news conference. ‘We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes, and people mocked President Johnson. And we ended up with Richard Nixon.’
The Chicago Police Department said at least 109 people are known to have been shot – 19 fatally – in a weekend of horrific gun violence across the city over the July Fourth holiday.
The spree spanned 74 separate incidents, including a horrific family slaying that saw an 8-year-old boy killed along with two relatives, while two other boys, aged 5 and 7, were injured in the same shooting.
Eight people were also shot in a mass shooting in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood.
Comparably, in 2023, 11 people were killed and 62 were injured over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.