America could use a substantive debate about the way police pursue their duties, charges of racial profiling, training, the culture within police forces, and how the media cover racially-charged accusations of abuse. The contention from some police chiefs is that a “Ferguson effect” has made police reluctant to do their jobs in certain neighborhoods and that criminals know it and take advantage:

“It’s the Ferguson effect,” Saint Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said. “I see it not only on the law enforcement side, but the criminal element is feeling empowered by the environment. If this is the new norm, the police department is not rightly sized. … If these are the types of crime we’re going to experience, we need a larger department.”

Ideally, the defense of the police that debate would look something like Heather MacDonald’s recent book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

Instead, this is what the Republican presidential nominee brings to the discussion:

Fox host Bill O’Reilly asked Trump how to solve the city’s crime problem, with homicides up nearly 50 percent.
“How? By being very much tougher than they are right now. They’re right now not tough. I could tell you this very long and quite boring story. But when I was in Chicago, I got to meet a couple of very top police. I said, ‘How do you stop this? How do you stop this? If you were put in charge — to a specific person — do you think you could stop it?’ He said, ‘Mr. Trump, I’d be able to stop it in one week.’ And I believed him 100 percent,” Trump said.
When O’Reilly asked whether the unnamed officer told him how, Trump said: “No, he wants to use tough police tactics, which is OK when you have people being killed.”
But Chicago police said Tuesday that Trump has not met with top brass.
“No one in the senior command at CPD has ever met with Donald Trump or a member of his campaign,” Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

An over-the-top promise citing an unidentified source, promising that unspecified “tough” methods would bring an end to murder in the city. Swell.