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Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign bragged on Monday that a “leading” law enforcement group had endorsed Harris, however, the organization is only a few months old and is run by a veteran Democratic political operative.

Police Leaders for Community Safety, which endorsed Harris on Sept. 23, only launched publicly on June 11, according to a press release from the group. A registration document filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) indicates that the organization is led by Gail Hoffman, a long-time Democratic staffer who worked on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign as director of surrogates and in the Clinton administration in various high-level roles, according to a biography on her website.

Hoffman has never worked for a police agency, per her biography.

Despite the organization’s recent founding and ties to the Democratic Party, Fox News Digital, which was given an advance copy of the endorsement, initially described the organization as a “leading law enforcement group,” language that the Harris campaign later used to tout the group’s backing. Days after publication, Fox changed its headline and removed the word “leading,” noting that “Police Leaders for Community Safety is comprised of former law enforcement leaders and not a leading group.”

The Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest law enforcement interest group, took issue with framing Police Leaders for Community Safety as a “leading” organization in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Prior to Police Leaders for Community Safety announcing their endorsement earlier this week, we were totally unfamiliar with the group,” a Fraternal Order of Police spokesperson told the DCNF. “We are very active, and aggressive in fact, in our interactions here in Washington [D.C.] and we’re present at basically every law enforcement-oriented meeting that happens here and we have never crossed paths with this organization nor are we familiar with its goals and objectives.”

The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed former President Donald Trump on Sept. 6, according to a press release. Police Leaders for Community Safety claimed to be “the only national police leadership organization that endorses candidates for political office” when announcing its support of Harris.

Police Leaders for Community Safety defended its status as a leading law enforcement organization, with a spokesperson telling the DCNF that it had been informally organizing since 2022 and filed registration paperwork with the IRS in 2023, with June 2024 representing the group’s public launch. The organization lists a few dozen law enforcement members, virtually all of whom are retired, on its “national advisory board.”

The Fraternal Order of Police, by contrast, had approximately 377,000 members as of this month, per a press release.

A spokesperson for the Harris campaign would not say whether or not it was accurate to call the Police Leaders for Community Safety a “leading” organization, instead pointing out that they had used the same language as Fox. The campaign did not respond to a follow-up inquiry after Fox changed its headline.

💪💪💪 pic.twitter.com/g6m4EztyDa

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 23, 2024

Police Leaders for Community Safety justified its nonpartisan bona fides in its statement to the DCNF, claiming that it is “comprised of Democrats, Republicans and independents” and that its endorsements are “based on issues of concern to law enforcement leaders, not on parties.”

All five of the people sitting on the organization’s board of directors, which includes Hoffman, are either Democrats or have a history of making liberal statements. Despite this, Police Leaders for Community Safety describes itself as a “nonpartisan national advocacy organization.”

David Mahoney, the organization’s treasurer, ran as a Democrat to serve as sheriff of Dane County, Wisconsin in 2018, ultimately winning the office. Susan Riseling, the chair of the organization’s board, meanwhile, uses social media almost exclusively to support Democrats and oppose Republicans, sharing posts from left-wing fake news operations like the Palmer Report as well as other large Democratic-aligned accounts like Occupy Democrats and MeidasTouch.

“Now I am a Democrat [because] the Republicans have no ideas beyond hate,” Riseling wrote on Twitter in 2021. “I can not understand any veterans voting Republican,” she said a year later.

Police Leaders for Community Safety vice chair Rick Myers, meanwhile, has used his LinkedIn account to advocate for expanded gun control, calling AR-15s “weapons of mass destruction,” and describing the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot as an “insurrection.”

“Despite the fact that our Founding Fathers had black powder muskets that could only shoot one round without reloading, and fashioned our unique Constitution and its Amendments to ensure our freedoms such that freedom to bear arms was designed for ‘a well regulated militia,’ we continue to allow unfettered weapons of mass destruction among our own citizens,” Myers wrote in 2021, reacting to a mass shooting in his area. “AR-15[s] are killing machines.”

Cynthia Herriott, the organization’s fifth board member, was a registered Democrat as of at least 2021, according to public records.

Herriott, Riseling and Myers are all retired police chiefs.

“Police Leaders for Community Safety is the only national police leadership organization that endorses candidates for political office, and this is the group’s first endorsement,” the group’s endorsement of Harris reads. “This and future endorsements will be based on candidates’ alignment on issues vital to law enforcement.”

Harris praised the defund the police movement multiple times in 2020.

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President Joe Biden’s policies have not contributed to a decrease in violent crime, multiple sources told the Daily Caller, despite the Biden-Harris administration seizing on a recent report that seemed to show major cities were safer in 2024.

One liberal-run city is a “dystopian hell,” remarked a police union representative to the Caller. Additionally, changes in reporting protocols create the “illusion” of safety, according to one law enforcement officer.

A report by the Major Cities Chiefs Association captured data on violent crime from 69 cities. New York City was not included because it did not submit violent crime numbers for the first half of this year. An Axios analysis of the data found a 6% overall decrease in violent crime in the first half of 2024 compared to the first six months of 2023. The data appeared to show steep drops in violent crime, including a 41% drop in Columbus, Ohio – the largest decline in the country.

Officers in the city, however, face a starkly different reality.

Lies, Damned Lies, And Crime Statistics

“Our officers and the citizens they serve are still battling violent crime daily,” Brian Steel, President of the Ninth Capital City Lodge Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) in Ohio, told the Caller. “Recent changes in crime reporting have done little more than create the illusion that all is well.”

Steel provided the Caller with the Columbus Police Department’s Homicide Reporting protocol. Police Chief Elaine Bryant took office in 2021, and the protocol was subsequently updated in 2022.

The department’s “annual homicide clearance rate” is determined based on FBI standards, according to the protocol.

The clearance rate is derived from “the total number of new homicides in a calendar year” and “the total number of homicides that are cleared that calendar year, regardless of the year the homicide occurred,” the document reads.

Steel explained how this transition impacts homicide statistics.

If a detective solved a cold case in 2024, but the homicide was committed in 2020, then that case goes toward the clearance rate for 2024. The policy increases the clearance rate and “makes itself better,” Steel added, but it didn’t used to be that way.

The FBI switched from its century-old method of collecting crime data to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in 2021. The left-leaning Marshall Project reported that almost 40% of law enforcement agencies did not submit data in 2021 to NIBRS, including New York City and Los Angeles.

Nebraska’s FOP President Anthony Conner told the Caller about his experience with changes in how crime is reported, although he argued homicide numbers are the best metric “because you can’t hide a dead body.”

He explained how when he first started on the police force over 20 years ago, if there was a shooting at a house, every person inside was documented as a felony assault victim.

“Well, they decided to change that,” Conner told the Caller. He stated that now, if police cannot identify the intended target, the charge is downgraded from a felony assault to a misdemeanor property crime.

Paul Ware, a 30-year law enforcement veteran and retired Portland, Oregon, police officer of 21 years, told the Caller some cities are not reporting all their crimes.

“They’re reporting the lesser crimes,” Ware told the Caller. “And so decreasing crime is, quite frankly, not real, because all they’re doing is reclassifying the crimes that they have on the streets into something other than exactly what it was.”

There is an incentive for cities to report lower levels of crime, California FOP President Roger Hilton explained to the Caller. He pointed to a July investigation published by the San Francisco Chronicle that revealed Oakland “overstated” its drop in crime.

Hilton stated California adopted measures that enable crime, specifically Proposition 47.

“Cops have limited tools to arrest people, and if they do arrest them, they’re out faster, before we can even finish writing the report,” Hilton told the Caller.

Voters approved Proposition 47 in 2014, and it demoted the classification of most nonviolent drug and property felonies to misdemeanors, according to Ballotpedia. This includes theft and fraud amounting up to $950.

Hilton also noted how charges can be downgraded during the sentencing process.

“As it goes through the criminal justice system, sometimes a lot of charges get dropped along the way,” he said, noting how the FBI gets its information from other law enforcement agencies.

“It’s hard for me to say how all of those things are all reported, and I doubt that they’re very consistent,” Hilton told the Caller.

Where Violent Crime Has Decreased, It’s Not Because Of The Biden Administration

The Axios analysis of the MCCA report showed Omaha, Nebraska, experienced a 30% decrease in violent crime.

Conner told the Caller violent crime decreased in Omaha because the police department cracked down on gang violence.

“Omaha has a Republican mayor who has been very supportive of law enforcement,” Conner said. Omaha’s Police Chief was instrumental in restructuring the department to effectively tackle gang violence, he noted.

The County District Attorney actually prosecutes homicides, unlike a lot of DAs around the country who are letting criminals free, according to Conner.

Conner said due to officer shortages, however, Omaha’s violent crime could start trending the other way. “We are down 126 officers, maybe even more than that now,” he told the Caller, noting the department is roughly 14% short of officers.

The Biden-Harris administration capitalized on the report and said violent crime hit a “record” 50-year low in the first part of 2024 in an August press release. The White House claimed its gun control polices and “American Rescue Plan” contributed to the decrease in violent crime.

Executive Director for Right On Crime and former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman disagreed, stressing crime is primarily a local issue.

“The policies that he’s talking about, like the background check, expanded background checks and all those things, has had virtually zero to do with any of the rise or the fall in the dropping crime,” Tolman told the Caller. “And I’ve yet to hear them articulate a policy they implemented that would.”

He explained the main deterrent is predictability, or when individuals believe they are going to be caught and punished for violating the law.

“You can lengthen sentence. You can shorten the sentence. You can do things that have no impact on deterring crime, but the predictability is the only factor,” he said.

The Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald told the Caller funding is essentially meaningless if people do not want to join the police force.

“There’re still departments that are completely unable to recruit and hold on to the officers that they’ve got,” she said. “Frankly, crime and policing are very local matters. There’s not a heck of a lot the federal government can do in terms of crime tactics and strategies.”

She emphasized the Biden admin should change its rhetoric if it actually wanted to help law enforcement.

“The one thing it should avoid doing is demoralizing the cops by calling them racist.”

The End Result Of Progressive Policies: ‘A Dystopian Hell’

One of the cities that reportedly experienced a drop in crime was Oakland, California – but locals tell a different story.

“If you walk around Oakland now, it is like a dystopian hell,” Sam Singer, who represents the Oakland Police Officers Association (OPOA), told the Caller. “And you know, small business are suffering.”

The OPOA sent a letter to the office of Mayor Sheng Tao calling for her to resign by Aug. 8, NBC Bay Area reported. They blamed Tao and the City Council majority for slashing the police force from 712 to 678 officers.

He said the OPOA is doubtful about the reported decrease in crime.

“Anyone who lives or works in Oakland, in the neighborhoods, small businesses, even major businesses, sees violent crime is out of control in the city, and the police force is essentially at half the strength it ought to be.”

Singer claimed “progressive leftists” in the city’s government defunded the police at a time when more police officers were needed.

Across the country, Americans are feeling the effects of rampant crime in major cities. In downtown Seattle, for example, a massive development project was stalled due in part to “open-air drug markets,” among other illegal activities.

The migrant crisis is also influencing crime, even in states not on the southern border. Omaha’s Anthony Conner noted how the cartels have made their way up to Omaha, even though Nebraska is not a border state.

Another factor driving up rates is juvenile crime, according to Conner. He pointed to the left-wing Sherwood Foundation (chaired by Warren Buffet’s daughter Susie Buffett), which he claimed ran commercials praising juvenile justice reform.

“Omaha would probably have half the homicides if it wasn’t for juveniles,” Conner said. “Our numbers would be even better.”

He explained how Nebraska’s juvenile detention law, which faced criticism after an 11-year-old was charged with murder, affects juvenile crime.

“So that means when a 13 year-old kills somebody they’ll be out by the time they’re 19 at the latest, and a lot of times they’re out within a year because they go to what’s called some sort of intensive treatment or whatever else,” Conner stated.

Three 13-year-olds were charged with first-degree murder in 2022, WOWT reported. Nebraska law requires all cases for those 13 and younger to go to juvenile court, according to the outlet. Once the suspects turn 19, they are cleared of any charges.

The Legacy Of The 2020 BLM Riots

Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots exploded in 2020 after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Two months before Vice President Kamala Harris joined Biden’s 2020 campaign, she defended the “defund the police movement” when it questioned police budgets.

Steel said that after the death of George Floyd, “Police officers were vilified” and “blamed for all society’s problems.”

In 2020, Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine released over 100 “non-violent inmates” from prison because of Covid-19, reported the Dayton Daily News. County sheriffs released hundreds more from local jails.

“We literally let people out of prison, and they got dropped off at city center,” Steel told the Caller. “And now these individuals, majority of them, have no job, nowhere to stay.”

Paul Ware told the Caller rioters “firebombed” the Portland Police Union’s headquarters in 2020. “It got attacked by mobs on several occasions, and so the Portland Police Association no longer has a physical office anywhere in the city limits of Portland.”

Mac Donald also said the riots contributed to the spike in violent crime.

She pointed to a 2023 study by the JAMA Network that analyzed firearm assault injuries and deaths of juveniles during the pandemic from four populous cities: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.

“The pandemic was irrelevant to this,” Mac Donald told the Caller. “It was the George Floyd race riots. They showed that black juveniles were 100 times more likely to be shot than white juveniles. And you know that’s just an amazing, amazing disparity.”

Mac Donald pushed back on Biden’s claim that violent crime is at record lows. “I don’t know where they come up with that,” she told the Caller, pointing to 2019 crime rates. “We’re above 2019, so that’s the problem.”

Data from the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey shows crime has not fallen to pre-2019 levels, although the most recent report is from 2022.

“We must remain vigilant and honest about the challenges we continue to face,” Steel said, “rather than being swayed by statistics that may not fully reflect the situation.”

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