As a lifelong resident of Chicago, I write with deep concern for the safety and well-being of our communities. The persistent violent crime across the city, particularly in our most vulnerable neighborhoods, has left many residents living in fear and hopelessness. The time has come to consider extraordinary measures — specifically, the deployment of National Guard troops — to stabilize the situation and protect innocent lives.
This is not a call for martial law or a long-term military presence. Rather, it is a plea for urgent, temporary assistance to support an overstretched Chicago Police Department, restore public order and allow space for longer-term community solutions to take root. The National Guard has been effectively deployed in crisis situations across the country — natural disasters, civil unrest and public safety emergencies — providing not only the personnel but also a visible deterrent to violent activity.
Deploying the Guard could provide immediate benefits: a reduction in shootings and homicides, increased safety for families and children, and a strengthened sense of public confidence. It would also free up local law enforcement to focus more on community engagement and investigative work, rather than simply responding to emergencies.
This is not a decision to be taken lightly. But doing nothing while violence claims more lives, especially those of young people, is not an option either.
The safety of Chicagoans must come before politics or pride. Let us give our neighborhoods the breathing room they need — and deserve — to heal.
— Ryan Wheeler, Chicago
City needs more police
The time for the National Guard coming to Chicago has long passed. When troops should have been called was when George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis and Chicago was up for grabs in a really bad way. The mayor at the time, Lori Lightfoot, and Gov. JB Pritzker waited too long to call in the National Guard, with too few troops. The damage was already done.
Now, some citizens in Chicago think they can continue the bad behavior and that they are welcome to help themselves to whatever they want, illegally.
Since 2020, the city has never been the same and has a reputation of being unsafe. It’s been trying to make a comeback, but it’s not doing so great. So maybe many of us don’t think we need the National Guard. If troops came, it would all be for show, and they really don’t want to be here. That’s not what they signed up for.
What we do need is more police, about 2,000 more than we have.
If New York can make it work, so can Chicago.
— Susan Kachiroubas, Chicago
Provide funds for cops
A request for President Donald Trump: Instead of spending millions of dollars on troop deployments to American cities, why not use that money to hire the hundreds of police Chicago needs but can’t afford right now due to defunding by the federal government?
— Dean Pritza, Orland Park
The role of Guardsmen
Regarding the letter from retired Chicago police Lt. Bob Angone concerning his experience with the use of the National Guard in a big city (“Auxiliary cops needed,” Aug. 22): Angone cites the National Guard’s presence during the riots after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. assassination and in connection with the 1968 Democratic National Convention. I was a member of the Illinois National Guard 131st Infantry stationed at the now-defunct Madison Street Armory and was activated during both incidents. I would like to provide my firsthand experience.
Angone states that Guardsmen are military specialists and do not understand municipal laws, especially regarding arrests, searches and seizure. He is correct that we were not concerned with arrest laws because that was not our purpose. We had extensive training in crowd control and containment during social unrest. Any fair critique of our performance during the two 1968 deployments will bear out that we performed our mission successfully. Between the April riots and the August convention, we had our annual two-week summer camp. We spent almost that entire time practicing crowd control tactics, which I am sure was more specialized training than most Chicago Police Department officers got.
Angone opines that we Guardsmen were not acquainted with the neighborhoods we were assigned to. I was born, raised and educated in Chicago, as were many of my fellow platoon members. We were stationed at the armory just west of Western Avenue, and the area we patrolled on the West Side was very familiar to us.
He also seems to think that there was confusion about the chain of command and communications. As an ex-Marine, he should know that the chain of command is drilled into the military from boot camp. We operated as platoon-sized units or larger, and there was always a sergeant in charge and within voice range as infantry troops at the time were not equipped with individual radios.
Contrary to Angone’s opinions, the National Guard troops deployed in 1968 did what we were tasked to do — crowd control. Arrests were not our job. Those were left to the police officers.
As to the question of how we did, go back and look for any photos of Guardsmen abusing their authority or using excessive force. Then look for photos of the police officers making arrests, and you can form your own opinion
— Charles Vandercamp, Chicago
The violence in our city
After watching all of the press conferences surrounding President Donald Trump’s threats to send the National Guard into Chicago to quell crime and the Democratic leadership in Illinois posturing against it, one group was missing from all those elites standing around the Chicago River talking about violence and its ups and downs.
It was the vast majority of those who continue to suffer from the consequences of the violence: African Americans from crime-infested neighborhoods.
As is always the political case in this city, crime is spoken about in a faceless and bodiless manner, even when the numbers of those who kill and who are killed by gunfire remain high among this group: young, Black and male. This past weekend alone, at least four people were killed and 20-plus wounded. And if it were not for the fact that trauma doctors and nurses in this city have become so adept at treating gunshot victims and saving lives, the number of dead would have probably been much higher.
Elected officials standing together and denouncing the National Guard being forced upon our state and city was a great photo-op, but where were the Black citizens who have to lie on the floor while bullets fly through their windows and walls?
According to the Illinois Policy Institute, from 2023 to 2024, 9 out of every 10 homicides occurred on the South and West sides of the city, and Black citizens were 20 times more likely to be the victim of a homicide than their white counterparts. The violence in African American communities costs millions of dollars in lost revenue from the loss in city taxes, companies not willing to invest and take risks in higher-crime areas, depressed home values, higher insurance rates, and health issues due to stressors brought on by being in a constant state of fight-or-flight in neighborhoods where the threat of violence is omnipresent.
Unfortunately, when Trump speaks about crime and using the military to quell it in our city, he is using it as a smokescreen to divert attention from the dysfunction in his administration, his perceived place within the Jeffery Epstein files, fallout from the Big Beautiful Bill and the Russia-Ukraine war. But to those of us who are Black and live with the threat of violence every day in this city, it doesn’t hurt to ask: Will it help?
— Ephraim Lee, Chicago
Chicago needs intervention
Bring the National Guard to Chicago. It should have happened during the Lori Lightfoot administration. Even though crime has dropped, it was at an unacceptably high level, so we still have a long way to go.
Our fellow citizens should not have to live in fear. People are getting shot on a daily basis. The fine officers of the Chicago Police Department are overworked, and I’m sure they could use the help. The mayor needs to put his hatred for all things Donald Trump aside and do what is right for our city.
In such a short time, the National Guard had made a dramatic difference in Washington. We need the same thing here.
— Mike Kirchberg, Chicago
It’s political retribution
President Donald Trump’s threat to send National Guard troops to Chicago is simply political retribution for our wayward beliefs in freedom and the rule of law. There is no other justification.
Will Trump send troops to Memphis, Tennessee, or Jacksonville, Florida, both of which have very high crime rates? Or Nashville, Tennessee, or Miami? Of course not, because those cities lean “conservative.” What nonsense.
We have Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents roaming Chicago streets with no identification, wearing plainclothes, masks and Kevlar vests and holding weapons. They snatch immigrants without a thought to morality, much less due process. Now Trump wants to send armed troops to walk our streets. What’s next, tanks and armored vehicles?
Is Chicago to become an occupied city? Are its residents to be deemed criminals simply because they fit a certain profile, react a certain way or vote for certain candidates? Can we look forward to brown shirts and armbands?
Americans — conservatives, liberals and everyone in between — need to wake up and insist that these power grabs stop.
— Karen Meehan, Chicago
The president’s weakness
President Donald Trump has now pushed me too far. He says he wants to put troops into Chicago? Well, I’ve got a message for him. Get lost! He’s a weak little man who never served his country. I did. I went to Officer Candidates School in the United States Marine Corps.
Trump is so weak he has to surround himself with sycophants. He can try to put troops in Chicago. But he’s tempting the most high to unleash his wrath upon Trump, his Cabinet, and the senators and representatives who support him.
Our nation has a divine mission, and he dares to rip it apart? If he sends troops into Chicago, I’m ready.
— Rusty Rich Salazar, Decatur
‘Out-of-control’ crime
The non-MAGA folks in Ohio are growing more and more concerned about President Donald Trump sending the military into U.S. cities under the pretense of stopping “out-of-control” crime. Since Trump is the one to determine that violence is “out of control” and in need of military intervention, he deploys troops as he sees fit. He has joined them with his masked commando-like force of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to form his own private army.
We hope and pray that cities such as Chicago and Baltimore — and states such as Illinois and Maryland — are successful in thwarting Trump’s march to autocracy. Clearly, with a Republican governor who has already answered Trump’s call for National Guard troops, Ohio will put up little resistance should Trump determine an Ohio city is overrun with crime and in need of his military force. And it is not just the nation’s cities but our democracy itself that is in peril.
— Stephen Gladstone, Cleveland, Ohio
Trump’s decision-making
President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard in D.C. to restore order and protect our capital is a little late. It was needed early on Jan. 6, 2021. He is comparing the homeless in 2025 to rioters in 2021 in authorizing deployment of the National Guard.
I am concerned about his decision-making.
— John Kasner, LaPorte, Indiana
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