Detroit’s police chief knows 911 can be too late.
That’s why he wants criminals to be as worried about armed citizens as they are about police.
jamescraig0308newer“The message should be that people are going to protect themselves,” Police Chief James Craig told WDIV-TV reporter Rob Meloni in an interview broadcast Friday. “They’re tired … they’re afraid, and they have a right to protect themselves.”
In a city that’s become a byword for failed municipal government, the chief said law-abiding citizens should be ready to act on their own defend their lives and families.
In two instances this week, Detroit residents were forced to used deadly force to protect themselves against criminals, WDIV reported: a woman who had a concealed carry permit shot and killed a man attempting to carjack her vehicle, while a homeowner shot to death a teenager who was trying to break into his home.
Those incidents were the news peg for the WDIV interview, but Craig is known nationally as one of the few big-city police chiefs who vocally advocates an armed citizenry as a crime-fighting tool. When it’s crunch time, he said, self- defense can be the only option.
“If you are confronted with an immediate threat to your safety, you’re not going to have time to dial 911,” Craig said. “It becomes an issue of, ‘the threat is here, I have to respond to the threat.’”
And he said criminals or potential criminals should keep two things in mind.
“Suspects in Detroit need to worry about a couple of things,” Craig said. “They’ve got to worry about a police department that is going to aggressively find you when you commit and act of violence. And you got to also worry about the good Detroiters who are not going to put up with the violence.”
Even after decades of liberal mismanagement, there’s still common sense left in Detroit. Check out Craig’s interview here.
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