Crosstalk: July 20, 2016

Jim Kouri is the founder and CEO of Kouri Associates, a homeland security, public safety and political consulting firm. Jim is a board member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and former chief of police at a New York City housing project nicknamed 'Crack City' by reporters covering the drug way in the 1980's. He has served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.

Jim believes that for the last 7 years, President Obama has been responsible for creating the current distrust of law enforcement. It began with the Professor Gates incident at Cambridge when he said the police acted stupidly without even knowing the particulars of what occurred. Once we found out, we realized the officer acted appropriately.

Then there was Attorney General Eric Holder going after police. Millions were spent in Holder's investigation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona. Jim noted that you'll hear the Democrats complain about the amount spent to investigate Hillary Clinton yet you never hear them complain about what was spent during the Arpaio investigation.

Jim feels Hillary Clinton has stoked the flames too. She has compared police to ISIS. She's also claimed that police departments are systemically racist.

Jim also took issue with the crime statistics that we get from the FBI. He believes they're being doctored. He noted that the uniform crime report is a voluntary process. Each jurisdiction is responsible for sending their crime statistics to the FBI to be included. So if someone wants the president to look good, they don't send their crime statistics.

Some are claiming the 'war on blue' is justified due to the recent killings of young, black men. We're told that officer shootings of black men are more than officer shootings of white men and that cops are racist.

This is where the numbers and how you view them is crucial. There are twice as many whites killed by police officers as blacks. Opponents will say that blacks make up only 14-15% of the population, however, they also make up 50% of the cop killers. So yes, there is a problem between law enforcement and blacks but the problem stems from the crime rate.

Regarding crime in general, Jim noted blacks are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime yet some feel it's racist to state that. For example, black perpetrators choose white victims more than they choose black ones except for one category and that's homicide. That's the only one where blacks choose blacks the majority of the time.

As this program moved along, Jim presented his feelings on gun control, the Black Lives Matter movement, the possible federalization of police forces in America and more, including input from Crosstalk listeners.