Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is blaming a national uptick in crime on a “war on cops” and “anti-cop riots.”
“Newton’s third law of physics says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” Huckabee said on his daily podcast, “The Huckabee Exclusive,” as first reported by Buzzfeed Politics. “So is anyone surprised that the recent war on cops that’s led to vilifying police, politicians tying cops hands or police being told to stay out of certain areas has led to a completely predictable reaction, a surge in crime?”
{mosads}The former Arkansas governor cited statistics that show spikes in urban city murder rates.
“Crime has been dropping since the 80s, but Breitbart reports that Chicago just had its deadliest month in 13 years, with shootings up 50 percent over last year,” Huckabee said.
“Since the April anti-police riots in Baltimore, homicides there are up 39 percent. In St. Louis the murder rate is up 60 percent last year.”
He also took a swipe at President Obama, saying the chief executive’s passive immigration policy has populated inner cities with violent criminals.
“Breitbart notes, the situation has been made worse for the Obama administration’s failure to enforce immigration laws, which has led to the release of 347,000 criminal convicted aliens,” Huckabee said.
Huckabee dismissed the notion that harsh prison sentences for non-violent crimes are racist, saying they were initially advocated for by leaders from the African-American community.
“That’s now depicted as racist sentencing that targeted African-Americans, even though the sentences were originally made harsher because African-American leaders complained that crack dealers were destroying their neighborhoods,” Huckabee said.
He said protesters are “finally getting what they want” with the Justice Department’s recent decision to release 6,000 federal inmates incarcerated for non-violent offenses.