SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Bruce Rauner says Mayor Rahm Emanuel has “failed horribly” on public safety after gunfire in the city last weekend injured more than 70 people and killed at least 12.
The Republican said Thursday that Chicago police have not received sufficient personnel, equipment or staffing assistance to be effective.
Rauner says he’s “disappointed” in Democrat Emanuel. Rauner says public safety is an officeholder’s first duty and that Chicago’s leaders “have fundamentally failed, failed horribly.”
Rauner made his comments after saying for a second day he would not dispatch the National Guard Chicago. He says Illinois State Police help patrol some neighborhoods and have jurisdiction on Chicago-area expressways.
A spokesman for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel dismissed Gov. Bruce Rauner’s complaint.
Adam Collins said Rauner is to blame for his veto of legislation to crack down on illegal gun sales through state licensing of firearms dealers. Rauner rejected the plan from legislative Democrats as too burdensome on small businesses. Rauner has promised to veto another version of the plan that lawmakers have not yet sent him.
Collins says police “are taking roughly one gun an hour off the streets.”
Police have will have 600 more officers in affected neighborhoods by this weekend.
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