Giuliani Praises 'Jerry' McCarthy, Slams Rahm 'Emmanuel' In Tweetstorm On Chicago Gun Violence
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani weighed in on a bloody weekend in Chicago, in a mistake-laden tweetstorm, blaming the city's Democratic elected leaders, and claiming former police superintendent and current mayoral candidate Garry McCarthy "can do a lot better."
In a statement, McCarthy said no thanks.
"Let me be clear," he said. "I am a proud Democrat and I do not agree with Mayor Giuliani's political views and I certainly remain opposed to the misguided, divisive tone and policies of Donald Trump."
In a series of four tweets overnight, Giuliani twice mistakenly referred to McCarthy as "Jerry," twice misspelled Mayor Rahm Emanuel's last name, and falsely claimed 63 people had been murdered over the weekend. [McCarthy's written statement misspelled Giuliani's last name as "Guiliani."]
The former Republican presidential candidate's tweets came amid an especially violent weekend in Chicago, which saw at least 11 people killed and 47 others wounded from Friday evening through early Monday. Many of those victims were wounded in a string of six mass shootings in seven hours early Sunday.
Giuliani also mistakenly claimed Chicago has had more murders "than ever before" under Mayor Rahm Emanuel's leadership, misspelling the mayor's last name as "Emmanuel."
While Chicago did have a major spike in murders in 2016, with more than 700 homicides for the first time in nearly 20 years, murders actually peaked in the city in the 1970s and 1990s; with the city seeing 970 homicides in 1974, and topping 900 murders three times in the mid 90s. Chicago's murder totals also dropped significantly last year, dropping from 771 in 2016 to 650 in 2017.
In blaming Chicago's Democratic elected leaders for this weekend's bloodshed, Giuliani praised McCarthy as a "genius" who helped save "tens of thousands of lives" while he was in charge of the New York Police Department's CompStat program in the early 2000s. At the same time, Giuliani mistakenly referred to McCarthy as "Jerry."
"Chicago murders are a direct result of one party Democratic rule for decades. Policing genius Jerry McCarthy can do for Chicago what I did for NYC. He was one of the architects of Compstat. Slashed homicides over 70%. Tens of thousands of lives saved," Giuliani tweeted.
In another tweet, Giuliani urged his followers to "get on board for Jerry McCarthy."
Giuliani, now an attorney for President Donald Trump, also borrowed the president's "Make America Great Again" campaign mantra to stump for McCarthy, stating he can "MAKE CHICAGO SAFE AGAIN!" while again misspelling Emanuel's last name, adding McCarthy "can do a lot better than Mayor Emmanuel [sic] who is fiddling while Chicago burns."
Since Emanuel fired him in 2015, McCarthy himself has repeatedly criticized his former boss for allowing the city's murder rate to skyrocket in 2016.
