CLEVELAND — When it comes to crime, the year 2025 is off to a good start in cities across the country. The Council of Criminal Justice found homicides in the 30-city study down 17% compared to last year, aggravated assaults down 10%, gun assaults 21% and robberies down 20%. As for Cleveland?
"Same here," said Cleveland Police Chief Annie Todd. "So all of our part one, which are our high-violent felonies, are all down, they've been down all year. We find that our actions are working, our homicide solve rates are at 70% right now."
When asked what she would attribute that to, she said, "I can't answer 100%, I'm grateful for it."
While she won't say, the Department of Homeland Security will, attributing the decline in a post on X to the policies of the Trump administration, specifically "the rapid arrests and deportations of criminal illegal aliens."
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb is taking issue with that. The post prompted Bibb to write an op-ed for MSNBC last week, stating, "It's egregiously misleading and brazenly hypocritical of the White House to try to take credit. The truth is that it’s all happening in spite of Donald Trump, not because of him."
"He said, despite President Trump's policies, which policies was he talking about?" asked Senator Bernie Moreno Monday. "Was he talking about the lower taxes? The child tax credit? These are all things that the Trump Administration has done," he said. "You know, when politicians make stupid comments like that, I don't normally pay a lot of attention to it."
He said instead of taking shots at the Trump Administration, Bibb should focus his efforts on making Cleveland better.
"If the mayor wants to play politics, we can play politics, but the reality is, Cleveland's got lots of problems," Moreno said. "He ran on a campaign called Cleveland Can't Wait. Well, we've been waiting for the mayor to do something transformative, and I haven't yet to see that. So I hope that he moves from being political and taking shots at the Trump administration to actually helping the citizens of Cleveland."
And working to fix those problems, Bibb told News 5, Monday isn't political.
"No. I am speaking truth to power, and it's important for our administration to communicate the progress that we're making and to continue to get community buy-in," Bibb said.
Something he says they're doing every day, including a safety walk planned for Monday evening.
"All we need is a good partner in the White House and in Congress to help us continue that progress," he said.
Something Moreno says they have been and will continue to be.
"We're going to be announcing some ideas and some strategies on how we're going to address taking back our cities."
