‘We have no choice.’ Trump expands Operation Legend, surging feds in American cities
President Donald Trump ordered the expansion of Operation Legend, a federal law enforcement effort to crack down on violent crime in Kansas City, to additional cities on Wednesday, defying local government officials who have warned that he lacked the authority to send federal agents into their streets.
Speaking from the White House, Trump said he had “no choice but to get involved” amid rising violent crime rates in several of America’s largest cities.
The speech comes after weeks of protests around the nation against police brutality following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and as Trump lags his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the polls.
Striking a sharply partisan tone, he claimed the increased violence was linked to a movement to redirect funding for police departments to social programs.
“Today, I’m announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime,” Trump said. “In recent weeks, there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police departments. Extreme politicians have joined this anti-police crusade and have relentlessly vilified our law enforcement heroes.”
“To look at it from any standpoint, the effort to shut down policing in their own communities has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence,” he continued. “This bloodshed must end. This bloodshed will end.”
Trump’s rhetoric heightened concerns of Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas about the operation, which began in Kansas City this month.
The U.S. attorney’s office in the Western District of Missouri has announced just one arrest in relation to the operation. But Attorney General William Barr claimed Wednesday that the FBI’s increased presence in the city had already resulted in 200 arrests, a misleading claim later walked back by the Justice Department.
“Just to give you an idea of what’s possible. The FBI went in very strong into Kansas City and within two weeks we’ve had 200 arrests,” Barr said.
Neither the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City, nor the Department of Justice could immediately provide information to substantiate Barr’s claim. Don Ledford, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City, told The Star Tuesday he was not aware of any additional arrests after his office announced an illegal firearm charge against a Kansas City man earlier this week.
“You can’t verify it because nothing can be verified,” Lucas said with frustration in a phone call following Trump’s event.
Late Wednesday, a Justice Department official confirmed to McClatchy that the 200-arrest figure dates back to December and includes both state and FBI arrests, made in joint operations.
‘It’s a lie.’
Lucas also criticized Trump’s rhetoric about violence in cities, which he repeatedly blamed on failures by local officials.
“No one gets more heartbroken by the murders and the shootings on our streets— other than families—than the mayor of the city. I grew up in the inner city. I live in the inner city,” Lucas said. “For the president to suggest that we don’t care or that urban politicians are killing people or harming people, it’s a lie. It’s frustrating.”
The Justice Department operation, which includes agents from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, will expand in the immediate term to Chicago and Albuquerque.
“The citizens of Chicago are citizens of America, and they have the same right as every other American to live in safety, dignity and peace,” Trump said.
Both Chicago and Albuquerque are led by Democratic mayors, who have concerns about the Trump administration’s push to wade into cities’ law enforcement.
“Operation Legend is not real crime fighting; it’s politics standing in the way of police work and makes us less safe,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said in a statement Wednesday evening.
Kansas City government is officially nonpartisan, but Lucas ran on a progressive platform and generally aligns with the Democratic Party. He said the three mayors are in communication and they share the same concern that the operation will expand beyond its original scope.
However, Lucas has repeatedly said he would welcome federal help in solving homicides as the city has already had a staggering 110 murder cases this year.
The operation is named after LeGend Taliferro, a 4-year-old murdered in Kansas City last month as he slept. Charron Powell, the boy’s mother, was among those who spoke at the White House event. She said the purpose of the operation was to find justice for families not to harass the community.
“He was a ball of joy,” she said. “I want his legacy to live on...and also to get justice for my son and others.”
Lucas said he wants to find justice for Taliferro’s family.
“I want to find justice for all of the families who have relatives whose lives were cut short, but to get justice, you don’t have to attack others in the community,” he said at a news conference at City Hall Wednesday.
The operation in Kansas City was announced earlier this month after Lucas wrote a letter to Missouri Gov. Mike Parson requesting a special legislative session to deal with gun violence in the state.
Parson, a Republican, has called the session, but he also said Wednesday that the increased federal law enforcement presence will be a key tool in addressing the issue.
“We have issues in the state of Missouri with violent crime. There is no way to sugarcoat it,” Parson said.
“When you’re talking about the homicide rate going up, I’ll take all the help I can get to go after violent criminals, wherever that might be, the federal, state or local levels,” he said. “That’s what it’s going to take to clean up this homicide rate and these violent criminals. So I’m thankful that the federal government sent those officers to Kansas City.”
A skeptical, wary community
Kansas City community leaders voiced skepticism and concern Wednesday about Operation Legend, viewing it as more of a re-election tactic by President Trump than an honest attempt to address crime.
Rachel Riley, whose son was shot and killed outside Truman Medical in October 2003, said Operation Legend won’t make a difference.
“They’re not in the business of making change,” Riley said. “It’s politics. It’s voting time.”
Riley, the president of the East 23rd Street PAC Neighborhood Association, said she is outraged by the operation and called the increased presence of federal forces sickening. She said taxpayers need to hold public officials accountable.
“I’m seeing this Operation Legend come in and it’s hurtful,” Riley said. “The violence … people are angry. The violence stems from hopelessness.”
Lora McDonald, executive director of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, said the operation was the product of a president “whose popularity is declining by the day.”
“The suggestion that they were coming here under the pretense of responding to a horrible homicide, yes let’s get some closure on the shooting of a little boy,” McDonald said. “But to exploit a child’s name and put a national stamp on it: That’s concerning.”
When asked about the White House decision to expand the Justice Department project into other cities, Vernon Howard paused and said “Wow,” repeatedly.
He said the country is now dealing with the kind of “fascist policies which we have disdained” in other nations, such as Russia, China or South Korea.
Howard, president of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said that the existing problems are due to the nation’s failed policies on wages, health care, education and curbing gun violence.
“It is a disrespect to our community and it is also a policy that clearly ignores grassroots people on the ground who know what the answers to violent crime are,” he said, adding that the solution is not additional law enforcement.
Howard said he worries that “we have taken a step into a police state,” supported by the federal government. “This is not healthy, it is not wise and it is not right.”
Attorney Stacy Shaw, who has been vocal at several protests in Kansas City, said that when the operation was announced, she was instantly concerned.
“I had already known wherever they were going to be dispatched, it would be in Black and brown communities and those communities are already over-policed as it is,” Shaw said.
Even as public officials, including Trump and Lucas, have said what happened in Portland won’t happen in Kansas City, Shaw said people “can’t trust anything that they have to say.”
Shaw referenced the constant Twitter fact checks made on the president: “We have no reason to believe that he is telling the truth.”
Shaw also voiced concerns about the timing of the election and the operation. Still, she encouraged people not to be afraid.
“Democracy allows power to be vested in the people,” Shaw said. “Not vested in Donald Trump. Donald Trump is not the people. Our mayor is not the people. Representative power is vested in them, but ultimately, the power belongs to the people.”
The Star’s Jason Hancock and Allison Kite contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 4:32 PM.
