Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up as he leaves for lunch after being summoned for jury duty in New York, Aug. 17, 2015. Photo by The Associated Press.
Once again, presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump is showing his lack of international knowledge and experience. During an interview with The New York Times, Trump named Oakland, California, and Ferguson, Missouri, as the most dangerous cities he’d ever visited. He even went so far as to compare the danger levels of those cities to that of Iraq.
New York Times reporter Robert Draper asked the real estate tycoon if he had ever been to Iraq, to which Trump responded “Never!” Draper noted that Trump seemed “horrified by the thought.”
So when the journalist followed up that question with “What’s the most dangerous place in the world you’ve been to?,” here’s how the presidential hopeful responded:
“Brooklyn,” Trump said jokingly. Then, in a more serious manner, he continued: “There are places in America that are among the most dangerous in the world. You go to places like Oakland. Or Ferguson. The crime numbers are worse. Seriously.”
Trump’s comment isn’t totally incorrect, as there are a few U.S. cities among the most dangerous in the world as it relates to murder, the Washington Post reports.
According to Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Publica y la Justicia, a Mexican non-governmental organization that documents the murder rates in cities with populations over 100,000, four American cities placed in the world’s top 50 dangerous cities. They were St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore and New Orleans. St. Louis ranks highest on the list at 15th. Baltimore comes in at 19th, with a homicide rate of 54.98 per 100,000, followed by Detroit, which ranked 28th-highest with a homicide rate of 43.89 per 100,000, per Politico. New Orleans bottomed out at 32nd.
It should be noted, however, that Ferguson and Oakland — cities Trump claimed to be highly dangerous — didn’t even make it on the list.
Though Oakland does have a crime rate, it’s interesting that “The Donald” would name a city where Black homicide rates are high. According to an FBI tally of violent crimes that occurred in Oakland in 2014, the California city had the third-highest rate of violent crime after Detroit, the Washington Post reports.
When asked what he thought of Trump’s recent comments, Mayor of Oakland Libby Schaaf stated, “The most dangerous place on earth is Donald Trump’s mouth.”
At the other end of the spectrum lies Ferguson, which doesn’t have a high crime rate at all. Out of Missouri’s 75 cities (for which data was compiled), Ferguson had the 23rd-highest crime rate in 2012, according to the Washington Post. The city itself isn’t dangerous but gets blamed for violence elsewhere due to the intense protests that erupted following the 2014 shooting of Black teen Michael Brown by a white cop.
Conservative politicians like Trump often blame the “Ferguson Effect” for high crime rates in other major cities, asserting that protests and the possibility of being recorded by civilians prevents cops from doing their jobs.
So far, there has been no confirmed link between protests and increased murder rates, according to the Washington Post. So Trump’s assertions that Ferguson and Oakland are among the most dangerous places in the world are indubitably without merit.
