Transcript:
Betsy Brantner Smith: Well, it’s it’s horrific. Let me let me push back just a little. I’m the spokesman for the National Police Association, and I want people to know it’s not because the police won’t do anything. It’s because the police can’t do what they wanna do. Cash Patel talks about this constantly.
Let cops be cops. In big blue cities like Memphis, the police department is horrifically short staffed. And when you are working in a police department that is run by a Democrat mayor, you are virtually hamstrung. We don’t just need to arrest our way out of this crime problem. We need to prosecute our way out of it, and then we need to put people in prison.
And that mother says it so aptly. She you know, is crime down? Not in her world is crime down. And let’s remember that you can say that crime statistics are down when crime isn’t properly reported. A lot of people just give up.
In a city like Memphis, people just stop reporting anything but the most horrific crimes because they know nothing is going to happen. I think it’s a great strategy for the president to bring in the National Guard along with other federal resources to Memphis to show the rest of the country that what happened Washington DC can work in other cities like Memphis and beyond.
Host: Absolutely. And Betsy, it’s such a great point. I have friends here in DC who said, you know, they’ve had things happen to them like being carjacked and they didn’t report it because prior to the National Guard coming in, they didn’t think anything was gonna happen. So thank you for bringing that up. I wanna talk about this next.
The mayor of Memphis, actually spoke with gang leaders and asked them if they can maybe just, you know, hold off on shootings, for at least seven days. Listen to this one.
Host: Mayor Young says he sat down with some of the city’s highest ranking gang members a few weeks ago.
Host: Just seven days where there’s no shooting, no killing.
Host: Mayor Young says gang leaders made a few requests of their own seeking promises other gangs would also put their guns down and asking the mayor’s team for more neighborhood investments and job options for young people.
Host: Mitch, have we really gotten to the point here where we’re asking gang leaders not to shoot people instead of saying the mayor doing his job and locking up these criminals and keeping the sea streets safe?
Mitch Brown: Yeah. I mean, that is the today’s standard. We care more about the feelings of criminals and the homeless. We are afraid of being labeled as racist. We are afraid of whatever someone’s gonna say about it from a social justice angle.
Again, I don’t care. Memphis should bring back their scorpion squads. They need to be harmful to criminals. They need to crack down. I wanna see it done with a violent force.
Even go back to last year when a young woman was out running, and she was murdered by a repeat offender criminal. It is not safe to be in these cities. Again, disregard what the mayor says. He can be best friends with these gang leaders. It does not matter.
We are the federal government. The Trump administration can go in and do whatever they want, and if the police won’t do it, and I know that she touched on how it’s it’s not the rank and file police officers, but it is police leadership. And I don’t care what happens there. If you are a cop underneath this police leadership that does not allow you to do it, you should reconsider where you are a police officer and move somewhere where you can actually help people.
Host: Yeah. Absolutely. You know, and once the National Guard shows up, I mean, no doubt we’re gonna see results, fewer shootings, fewer deaths, safer streets. Betsy, do you think this could really set the tone for how other cities approach violent crime?
Betsy Brantner Smith: I think it absolutely could. Look. Exactly what he said is happening. Police officers are leaving large blue cities in droves to go to other states and other cities where they’re allowed to do their jobs. If we you can’t have a mayor who negotiates with terrorists, and this is you know, Rahm Emanuel in Chicago tried this over a decade ago, asking the gangs to take their business into the alley so children wouldn’t be shot.
We have got to understand that the street gangs in this country have infiltrated government. And so in these large blue cities, like Memphis, like Chicago, like LA, the street gangs have standings because the mayors allow them to have standing and the police leadership as well. We should not negotiate with terrorists, and street gangs are terrorists. And it’s time we start talking about them and going after them locally and federally instead of saying, oh, gang databases are racist and cops are racist. We have got to go back to law and order in this country, and we can do it constitutionally, and we can do it in every city in America.
Host: Alright. And we are gonna leave it right there. Betsy and Mitch, great to be with you both today. Thank you for your insights.
Betsy Brantner Smith: Thanks for having us.