President Barack Obama appears to be in denial over the unprecedented spike in violent crimes during his two terms as president. In an op-ed published in the Harvard Law Review, Obama refused to take credit for a 10.8 percent increase in murders from 2014 to 2015 — the largest increase in a single year since 1971.
In his Harvard Law Review op-ed, Obama claimed crime “remains near historic lows,” and he was adamant that there “is no growing crime wave”.
The president, who has 11 days left in office, took pride in using his “clemency power” to pardon hundreds of hardened criminals back onto the streets — more than any president in history.
Obama bragged that he will be “the first President in decades to leave office with a federal prison population lower than when I took office.”
A Brennan Center for Justice report noted that “The [2016] violent crime rate is projected to rise slightly, by 5.5 percent, with half the increase driven by Los Angeles (up 13.3 percent) and Chicago (up 16.2 percent)”.
Obama returned to Chicago in the early days of 2017 to salvage his legacy.
In an interview with a Chicago CBS News affiliate, the president blamed social media for providing a platform to broadcast high profile crimes, such as the one involving a white man who was tortured for hours by 4 young black people.
Obama called the senseless hate crime in Chicago “terrible” and “despicable”.
A Gofundme page set up for the victim, who is autistic, has collected over $129,000.