Donald Trump Says Crime Is Out of Control — Here's Why He's Totally Wrong

Another day, another Donald Trump tweet that bears no roots in reality.

On Tuesday morning, the Republican presidential hopeful slash vocal lover of Jews and Hispanics declared that crime in American cities is getting worse — and that he's the beacon of hope.

Which is alarming — but also false.

"Crime in the U.S. is at an all-time low across the country, and we expect it to stay that way," Ronal Serpas, Chairman of the Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration and a former New Orleans Police Superintendent, told the Washington Post. "Despite some misleading reports about a surge in crime rates, the data show just the opposite."

Maybe Trump is talking about the New York Times article from August 2015 that said murder rates were rising — which the Times' editorial board later clarified as not the red flag the original story conveyed. Or maybe he was talking about the 115 reported black men killed by police in 2016 — but probably not, since he doesn't seem to actually know much about who those men were.

But a probable effort to play on the fears of Americans falls flat when it's pitted against actual numbers, not just words (which Trump both knows and has the best of), that prove it untrue.

"As recent studies show, the overall crime rate will be lower [in 2015] than it was [in 2014], and half of what it was in 1990," Serpas told the Washington Post. "Some cities have seen a rise in murder, but those are isolated incidents — not a new crime wave — which local leaders are taking steps to address.

"We cannot let sensational headlines slow the momentum to reduce unnecessary incarceration."

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