'Simply not true': Detroit police chief gives Trump's crime claims a reality check

Former President Donald Trump has long depicted American cities as lawless and dangerous, even going so far as to claim that the Venezuelan capital of Caracas is now safer than most U.S. cities.

However, NBC News recently traveled to Detroit, where Trump has claimed that "you can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped," and has found the situation there is far from dire.

In fact, Detroit Police Chief James White even told NBC News that Trump's depiction of the Motor City is the opposite of reality.

“That’s simply not true,” White explained. “I invite him to walk the streets of Detroit, and I’d be more than happy to do that with him and show him how Detroit is performing... when we compare where we are today, where we were yesterday, and where we were last year, and certainly where we were during the pandemic, we have reduced crime in the city of Detroit."

NBC News goes on to inform readers that Detroit, like most major cities in the United States, has been seeing significant falls in crime over the last couple of years.

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"Detroit has experienced a dramatic drop in murders, shootings and other violent crime in recent years, according to city, state and federal statistics," according to NBC News' reporting. "After surging during the pandemic, rates of violent crime have dropped back to where they were in 2019, the numbers show — dramatically lower than they were 10 and 20 years ago. Detroit had 252 homicides last year, the lowest number since 1966."

NBC News goes on to debunk claims by Trump supporters that the fall in reported crime is due to "woke" prosecutors failing to bring charges by noting that the FBI's crime statistics come from incidents reported to police, not from documented criminal prosecutions.