August 12, 2025 • 12 mins
Politicians love to proclaim CRIME IS DOWN without noting that crime rates are still way out of control compared to pre-2020 life.
ABC News law enforcement contributor Don Mihalek, a retired Senior Secret Service agent, weighs the CRIME IS DOWN claim versus how citizens actually feel about their personal safety.
Don points out there's a significant difference between the crime stats that are being referred to and the population actually feeling safe. He points out that the latest action by the Trump administration is not without precedent: in the 1980's and 90's federal agencies combined to create a task force to knock back the drug problems of those years.
BONUS: Joe Biden audio from 1991 where he describes his nighttime driving habits of evading red light stops for feat of being carjacked in Washington D.C.
ABC News law enforcement contributor Don Mihalek, a retired Senior Secret Service agent, weighs the CRIME IS DOWN claim versus how citizens actually feel about their personal safety.
Don points out there's a significant difference between the crime stats that are being referred to and the population actually feeling safe. He points out that the latest action by the Trump administration is not without precedent: in the 1980's and 90's federal agencies combined to create a task force to knock back the drug problems of those years.
BONUS: Joe Biden audio from 1991 where he describes his nighttime driving habits of evading red light stops for feat of being carjacked in Washington D.C.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But it had a lot of questions about why our
juvenile justice system is so out of whack here in
Jefferson County that if you're under age and you get arrested,
you pretty much are just taken into police headquarters and
then as soon as an adult shows up for you
and signs for you, you're back out again, and you
(00:22):
could be committing crime twenty minutes later. And it's like
the council member Pagentini's question was, what in the world
is taking the governor so long to fund the money's
already there, and no one here in city government has
any answers from state government on when they're going to
reopen a juvenile justice system. And they'll say, well, then
(00:43):
why don't they just assign them to the next county over,
And here's the answer. They'll say, it's just too hard
on the perpetrator's family to have to travel forty miles
to go to their court session. It's like, wait a minute, what, Yeah,
that's one of the excuses given oftentimes asking for lenian
see and so forth. So that's one of our issues
going on. We got into a whole lot of that.
(01:05):
So now you know what's going on in Washington, d C.
The President talking about National Guard troops now going in there,
and it's got a lot of people scratching their head
what are we going to do? And then people start
talking about crime rates. We hear it on various news
reports here in Louisville. The crime rate is done.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Last month, Mayor Greenberg and down Safe Louisville a comprehensive
plan to continue reducing violent crime in the metro.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Shootings and homicides are down thirty percent compared to last year.
That is, and that's the mayor saying, that's wonderful news.
That's all happening. So the question remains, what's the difference
between crime stats and actually feeling safe. We have ABC
News law enforcement contributor and retired senior Secret Service agent
in Philadelphia, Don Mhullick. Welcome, Don, it's good to have
(01:53):
you here.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Cherry, Hey, my friend. I know a lot of people
in law enforcement around here, and we talk about these
issues all the time, and there is absolutely a chasm
between politicians telling you how great it is. The crime
rate is done, violent crime is done, but people still
feel like, well, we're unsafe. On Friday, four days ago,
(02:19):
we had a man who was sentenced to fourteen years
don for a series of robberies, sticking a gun in
people's faces at ATMs. He robbed a bunch of stores.
He was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. He got
out after five months shot probation. And this just terrifies
the whole community. Again, why is a guy like this
walking around? So that's what the balance beam is right now,
(02:41):
the crime stats versus feeling safe. What is your take
on this?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I agree, and I think sometimes crime rates with politicians
use it as a talking point versus talking to reality.
The bottom line is, you know, crime rates aren't the
people living in cities, living in neighborhoods, walking the streets,
visitors coming to the community, especially in d C, which
is an international city. So crime stats don't speak to
(03:07):
people feeling safe. And I'm sure if you talk to
the town residents in that Idaho town where that kid murdered,
but that guy murdered the four girls a couple of
years ago, they all felt safe in Idaho until they
had four kids murdered in the middle of their town. Now,
I'm sure they don't feel very safe there. So there
was a star contrast between feeling safe, and that feeling
(03:30):
of safety which go which also translates to when you're
walking down the street, are their windows broken? Are there
stores abandoned? Is their homeless homeless encampments all over the
place which you see in d C, which contribute to
a feeling of not being safe. And I think it's
I think it's a little hypocritical of politicians to talk
(03:51):
out of both sides in their mouth and say, well,
the crime rate is down, but yet they're listening to
residents which has occurred in DC, saying hey, look we
see the shooting, we see the stabbings, we see the
drug deals going on. We don't feel safe and we
want to feel safe. And I think the President, being
who he is, seized on that and said, look, I
agree with you. I see it when I'm in my
(04:12):
motorcade traversing DC. I see the homeless encampments, I see
what's going on in street corners. I see the look
DC is given to the world, and it's not right.
And I have the power to clean it up. Let's
clean it up. Let me mobilize the federal agencies, and
let me call in a National Guard to be a
visual deterrent and let's get cracking on crime and really
(04:36):
knock back crime in a way it hasn't been done
in a long time, probably since the late eighties or nineties,
where DC had a surge of federal agencies who actually
came in during the height of the drug trade and
they actually knocked back drug climbs all over the city,
led mostly by the same federal agencies that are leading
this task force. And Dohn.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
We're told over and over again crime rates are down,
and I always say back of them, well, why don't
we just leave our doors unlocks? Why are you worried
about your purse? I mean, whether it's this crime is down,
it's nothing but nirvana here now, which, of course is nonsense.
I'm being sarcastic. We had a kid last week arrested finally,
but he was shooting a gun down the street while
(05:17):
a bunch of children were waiting on the corner for
a school bus. I mean, it's insanity. In twenty twenty,
we had a bunch of uprisings, of course they did
all across America. Seven people were shot in one incident. Now,
there was a time not that long before twenty twenty
where that would be talked about for months and people
(05:40):
would be asking, what are we doing wrong? That story's
hung around for two days and was gone seven people
a mass shooting like that.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Well, and if you look at the last couple of years,
I think generally in most major cities, crime spiked because
of the craziness out of COVID and criminals or were
released out of jail for all kinds of reasons. And
we had a crime surge across cities across America and
nobody felt safe. No cities could say they were safe.
(06:10):
So now finally we've seen some reduction in the crime rate,
but from what from where it was before that time period,
or where it is relative to now. The bottom line is,
you know, feeling safe is an individual thing. It's a
personal thing. And if you're not doing things, then should
as the residence and your community look safe and feel safe,
(06:33):
then your decid ale statistics you want, it's not going
to matter. And you know we have in the Northeast
here in some of the major cities like Philadelphia, have
these gangs of juveniles that ride their dirt bikes and
motorbikes through the city as packs and hordes. Now, the
conduct in and of itself isn't isn't you know, criminal
(06:54):
so to speak. It's not violent, but it releases a
feeling of unsafety throughout the city because nobody knows what
these people are going to do, but the city law
enforcement are in some cases unable to address it because
of the mobility of the motorcycles. So you know, those
are the kind of things where I think people see
people are victimized by and go, look, I just don't
(07:15):
feel safe and I want to feel.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Safe, right, And you have enough friends in law enforce
and those gangs that roll down the street and do
all that stuff. But we see videos they're doing that
for clout on social media oftentimes too, and so that's
just everybody freezes in their spot and lets people just
take over in the interstate highway. It's like you don't
want you don't want to get shot by saying something
(07:38):
about it, which is astounding that we're in a position
like that now.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
No, it's it's and that's where that's where really like.
And that goes again to the to the over conversation
here about the feeling of not feeling safe if you
don't establish law and order, if there aren't rules in places,
the rules aren't enforced, if the police aren't doing what
they're supposed to be doing because of political reasons, that
contributes to this feeling of unsafety which many places in
(08:06):
this country feel. I think some places have gotten their
arms wrapped around it and are starting to control it
better than it's been in the past couple of years.
But I think there's a lot of work to do,
including in a city like DC where although maybe they
can cite crime reductions, if you're if a federal government employed,
in this case, a White House staff member was involved
(08:27):
in a carjacking, that and of itself sends a message
that we're not really as safe as we think we are.
So let's do something about it. Let's let law enforcement
do their job. Let's put the criminals behind bars, and
let's make sure they stay there.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Indeed, and this is not unprecedented, by the way, that
was all the hysteria yesterday. Oh my god, authoritarianisms. Now
I've spent it was done in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
We've done in the eighties and nineties by the federal government.
They had a task force focused on reducing the drug crimes,
and in reality, this surge, the beginning of it started
last year when the bid administration was still they finally
had the DJ form a federal task force to start
looking at the crimes that were curring in DC and
started addressing some of the crime that was occurring in
(09:12):
d C, which is how now the politicians can point
to reduce crime stats. It wasn't so much MTD in
that matter. It was the surge of the federal agencies
under the Department of Justice back in early twenty twenty
four that started this. This is just now, I guess,
putting it on steroids where now you got the full
way to the White House behind it, and who are
adding even more resources than before to make sure they
(09:34):
can get DC under control, make it a safe city
so that anybody visiting from anywhere in the world or
anywhere in the United States feels safe, and the residents
and the employees going back to work can feel safe
and not have to worry about being jumped or coming
across a corner with a homeless encamping on it.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Indeed, here's Joe Biden thirty years ago. We'll close with
this clip.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Driving home, my staff lives here in the hill reminded me,
I don't stop at a stop light until I'm out
of town. If I see a red light late at night,
since it's very little traffic slow up at the other block,
so I never come to a full stop except in
the middle of the block because of car jackets stopping
(10:16):
a light, people standing in the corner walking up with
a gun.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
That's Joe Biden, who just finished, obviously being President of
the United States, and people are acting like people are
making hysterical statements about crime rates. That's thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, listen, that's a You know, crime is crime. It
doesn't matter at the time, it doesn't matter when, and
it needs to always needs to be addressed. It needs
to be under control. The police needs to be allowed
to do their job within the constitution and the laws.
And you know, politicians, really they often politicize crime, crime rates,
and they end up doing a disservice, in my opinion,
(10:55):
to the community because nobody, nobody wants to feel unsty
nobody wants their families to be victimized by criminals, nobody
wants breakings, nobody wants drug addicts on their doorstep, and
nobody wants to walk through a city that has multi
billion dollar real estate and is the seat of the
federal government, and you can't, and you can't go through
(11:15):
national monuments without dodging homeless encampments.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Nobody wants that, And nobody wants to open a business
where they're having people in front of them who have
more rights than the person paying taxes and rent for
that business.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Or that aren't or the prosecutors aren't prosecuting in some
cities larcenies less than you know, nine hundred dollars. So
you have some cities in a country where the San
Francisco being case in point, where people go in, they
steal nine hundred dollars worth of gear and they walk out.
So what are business is doing closing their doors.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And leaving have to the last thing for you, Don,
you're in Philadelphia outside yeahsa, you guys going to repeat
in the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Everybody here is hoping, so all right, everybody's looking at
the Phillies helping the Phillies. We'll finally bring the ring
home too.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So yeah, that's a long shot there. All right, great
talking to you. Don, appreciate the chat.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Thanks all, Take care. All right.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
That's Don Mahallick. He is an ABC News Law enforcement
contributor and retired senior Secret Service agent,
But it had a lot of questions about why our
juvenile justice system is so out of whack here in
Jefferson County that if you're under age and you get arrested,
you pretty much are just taken into police headquarters and
then as soon as an adult shows up for you
and signs for you, you're back out again, and you
(00:22):
could be committing crime twenty minutes later. And it's like
the council member Pagentini's question was, what in the world
is taking the governor so long to fund the money's
already there, and no one here in city government has
any answers from state government on when they're going to
reopen a juvenile justice system. And they'll say, well, then
(00:43):
why don't they just assign them to the next county over,
And here's the answer. They'll say, it's just too hard
on the perpetrator's family to have to travel forty miles
to go to their court session. It's like, wait a minute, what, Yeah,
that's one of the excuses given oftentimes asking for lenian
see and so forth. So that's one of our issues
going on. We got into a whole lot of that.
(01:05):
So now you know what's going on in Washington, d C.
The President talking about National Guard troops now going in there,
and it's got a lot of people scratching their head
what are we going to do? And then people start
talking about crime rates. We hear it on various news
reports here in Louisville. The crime rate is done.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Last month, Mayor Greenberg and down Safe Louisville a comprehensive
plan to continue reducing violent crime in the metro.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Shootings and homicides are down thirty percent compared to last year.
That is, and that's the mayor saying, that's wonderful news.
That's all happening. So the question remains, what's the difference
between crime stats and actually feeling safe. We have ABC
News law enforcement contributor and retired senior Secret Service agent
in Philadelphia, Don Mhullick. Welcome, Don, it's good to have
(01:53):
you here.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Cherry, Hey, my friend. I know a lot of people
in law enforcement around here, and we talk about these
issues all the time, and there is absolutely a chasm
between politicians telling you how great it is. The crime
rate is done, violent crime is done, but people still
feel like, well, we're unsafe. On Friday, four days ago,
(02:19):
we had a man who was sentenced to fourteen years
don for a series of robberies, sticking a gun in
people's faces at ATMs. He robbed a bunch of stores.
He was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. He got
out after five months shot probation. And this just terrifies
the whole community. Again, why is a guy like this
walking around? So that's what the balance beam is right now,
(02:41):
the crime stats versus feeling safe. What is your take
on this?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
I agree, and I think sometimes crime rates with politicians
use it as a talking point versus talking to reality.
The bottom line is, you know, crime rates aren't the
people living in cities, living in neighborhoods, walking the streets,
visitors coming to the community, especially in d C, which
is an international city. So crime stats don't speak to
(03:07):
people feeling safe. And I'm sure if you talk to
the town residents in that Idaho town where that kid murdered,
but that guy murdered the four girls a couple of
years ago, they all felt safe in Idaho until they
had four kids murdered in the middle of their town. Now,
I'm sure they don't feel very safe there. So there
was a star contrast between feeling safe, and that feeling
(03:30):
of safety which go which also translates to when you're
walking down the street, are their windows broken? Are there
stores abandoned? Is their homeless homeless encampments all over the
place which you see in d C, which contribute to
a feeling of not being safe. And I think it's
I think it's a little hypocritical of politicians to talk
(03:51):
out of both sides in their mouth and say, well,
the crime rate is down, but yet they're listening to
residents which has occurred in DC, saying hey, look we
see the shooting, we see the stabbings, we see the
drug deals going on. We don't feel safe and we
want to feel safe. And I think the President, being
who he is, seized on that and said, look, I
agree with you. I see it when I'm in my
(04:12):
motorcade traversing DC. I see the homeless encampments, I see
what's going on in street corners. I see the look
DC is given to the world, and it's not right.
And I have the power to clean it up. Let's
clean it up. Let me mobilize the federal agencies, and
let me call in a National Guard to be a
visual deterrent and let's get cracking on crime and really
(04:36):
knock back crime in a way it hasn't been done
in a long time, probably since the late eighties or nineties,
where DC had a surge of federal agencies who actually
came in during the height of the drug trade and
they actually knocked back drug climbs all over the city,
led mostly by the same federal agencies that are leading
this task force. And Dohn.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
We're told over and over again crime rates are down,
and I always say back of them, well, why don't
we just leave our doors unlocks? Why are you worried
about your purse? I mean, whether it's this crime is down,
it's nothing but nirvana here now, which, of course is nonsense.
I'm being sarcastic. We had a kid last week arrested finally,
but he was shooting a gun down the street while
(05:17):
a bunch of children were waiting on the corner for
a school bus. I mean, it's insanity. In twenty twenty,
we had a bunch of uprisings, of course they did
all across America. Seven people were shot in one incident. Now,
there was a time not that long before twenty twenty
where that would be talked about for months and people
(05:40):
would be asking, what are we doing wrong? That story's
hung around for two days and was gone seven people
a mass shooting like that.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Well, and if you look at the last couple of years,
I think generally in most major cities, crime spiked because
of the craziness out of COVID and criminals or were
released out of jail for all kinds of reasons. And
we had a crime surge across cities across America and
nobody felt safe. No cities could say they were safe.
(06:10):
So now finally we've seen some reduction in the crime rate,
but from what from where it was before that time period,
or where it is relative to now. The bottom line is,
you know, feeling safe is an individual thing. It's a
personal thing. And if you're not doing things, then should
as the residence and your community look safe and feel safe,
(06:33):
then your decid ale statistics you want, it's not going
to matter. And you know we have in the Northeast
here in some of the major cities like Philadelphia, have
these gangs of juveniles that ride their dirt bikes and
motorbikes through the city as packs and hordes. Now, the
conduct in and of itself isn't isn't you know, criminal
(06:54):
so to speak. It's not violent, but it releases a
feeling of unsafety throughout the city because nobody knows what
these people are going to do, but the city law
enforcement are in some cases unable to address it because
of the mobility of the motorcycles. So you know, those
are the kind of things where I think people see
people are victimized by and go, look, I just don't
(07:15):
feel safe and I want to feel.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Safe, right, And you have enough friends in law enforce
and those gangs that roll down the street and do
all that stuff. But we see videos they're doing that
for clout on social media oftentimes too, and so that's
just everybody freezes in their spot and lets people just
take over in the interstate highway. It's like you don't
want you don't want to get shot by saying something
(07:38):
about it, which is astounding that we're in a position
like that now.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
No, it's it's and that's where that's where really like.
And that goes again to the to the over conversation
here about the feeling of not feeling safe if you
don't establish law and order, if there aren't rules in places,
the rules aren't enforced, if the police aren't doing what
they're supposed to be doing because of political reasons, that
contributes to this feeling of unsafety which many places in
(08:06):
this country feel. I think some places have gotten their
arms wrapped around it and are starting to control it
better than it's been in the past couple of years.
But I think there's a lot of work to do,
including in a city like DC where although maybe they
can cite crime reductions, if you're if a federal government employed,
in this case, a White House staff member was involved
(08:27):
in a carjacking, that and of itself sends a message
that we're not really as safe as we think we are.
So let's do something about it. Let's let law enforcement
do their job. Let's put the criminals behind bars, and
let's make sure they stay there.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Indeed, and this is not unprecedented, by the way, that
was all the hysteria yesterday. Oh my god, authoritarianisms. Now
I've spent it was done in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
We've done in the eighties and nineties by the federal government.
They had a task force focused on reducing the drug crimes,
and in reality, this surge, the beginning of it started
last year when the bid administration was still they finally
had the DJ form a federal task force to start
looking at the crimes that were curring in DC and
started addressing some of the crime that was occurring in
(09:12):
d C, which is how now the politicians can point
to reduce crime stats. It wasn't so much MTD in
that matter. It was the surge of the federal agencies
under the Department of Justice back in early twenty twenty
four that started this. This is just now, I guess,
putting it on steroids where now you got the full
way to the White House behind it, and who are
adding even more resources than before to make sure they
(09:34):
can get DC under control, make it a safe city
so that anybody visiting from anywhere in the world or
anywhere in the United States feels safe, and the residents
and the employees going back to work can feel safe
and not have to worry about being jumped or coming
across a corner with a homeless encamping on it.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Indeed, here's Joe Biden thirty years ago. We'll close with
this clip.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Driving home, my staff lives here in the hill reminded me,
I don't stop at a stop light until I'm out
of town. If I see a red light late at night,
since it's very little traffic slow up at the other block,
so I never come to a full stop except in
the middle of the block because of car jackets stopping
(10:16):
a light, people standing in the corner walking up with
a gun.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
That's Joe Biden, who just finished, obviously being President of
the United States, and people are acting like people are
making hysterical statements about crime rates. That's thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, listen, that's a You know, crime is crime. It
doesn't matter at the time, it doesn't matter when, and
it needs to always needs to be addressed. It needs
to be under control. The police needs to be allowed
to do their job within the constitution and the laws.
And you know, politicians, really they often politicize crime, crime rates,
and they end up doing a disservice, in my opinion,
(10:55):
to the community because nobody, nobody wants to feel unsty
nobody wants their families to be victimized by criminals, nobody
wants breakings, nobody wants drug addicts on their doorstep, and
nobody wants to walk through a city that has multi
billion dollar real estate and is the seat of the
federal government, and you can't, and you can't go through
(11:15):
national monuments without dodging homeless encampments.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Nobody wants that, And nobody wants to open a business
where they're having people in front of them who have
more rights than the person paying taxes and rent for
that business.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Or that aren't or the prosecutors aren't prosecuting in some
cities larcenies less than you know, nine hundred dollars. So
you have some cities in a country where the San
Francisco being case in point, where people go in, they
steal nine hundred dollars worth of gear and they walk out.
So what are business is doing closing their doors.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And leaving have to the last thing for you, Don,
you're in Philadelphia outside yeahsa, you guys going to repeat
in the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Everybody here is hoping, so all right, everybody's looking at
the Phillies helping the Phillies. We'll finally bring the ring
home too.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So yeah, that's a long shot there. All right, great
talking to you. Don, appreciate the chat.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Thanks all, Take care. All right.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
That's Don Mahallick. He is an ABC News Law enforcement
contributor and retired senior Secret Service agent,
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