Former Cincinnati, Ohio, Mayor Ken Blackwell said that Democrats blame "systemic racism" to avoid taking responsibility for the dangerously high volume of crime in cities they run.
In an interview Wednesday with SiriusXM’s "Breitbart News Daily," Blackwell commented on a Breitbart column he wrote with former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on crime in Democrat-run cities.
"The real systemic and deadly reality is that black men and women are being slaughtered in cities and communities of color across the country in numbers that can only be compared to war zones in Iraq and Syria," Blackwell told 'Breitbart News Daily.' "Every single one of those cities have been run by Democrats, and in some cases, [for] as long as 40 years. [Kerik and I] just took exception to the fact that these mayors were passing the buck. These local officials were passing a buck."
Blackwell continued by decrying the notion of systemically racist police, saying that Democrat leadership uses the "boogeyman of systemic racism" to cover up their own shortcomings in America's cities.
"You can't paint safety forces with a broad brush saying that they are riddled with systemic racism when the facts don't bear that out," he said. "But what is [borne] out by the facts is that these local leaders have found some comfort in the status quo. They have embraced a narrative that pushes the blame from their incompetence [to] this boogeyman of systemic racism where it doesn't exist."
Blackwell also noted the amount of destruction left in the wake of weeks of protests over the death of George Floyd.
"Fifteen innocent civilians and two police officers were shot and killed," Blackwell stated. "Hundreds of civilians brutally beaten, and more than 700 police officers were injured nationwide. Hundreds of millions of dollars of property have been destroyed as businesses and places for people to make money and raise their families in 42 states."