Donald Trump claimed earlier this week to have met with a "top" Chicago police officer, but the city"s police department says no such meeting took place.
On Monday, Trump appeared on "The O"Reilly Factor" on the Fox News channel, where he said he spoke to a Chicago cop who told him how to stop the rising homicide rate in the city, the Chicago Tribune reports.
"When I was in Chicago, I got to meet a couple of very top police. I said, 'How do you stop this? How do you stop this? If you were put in charge — to a specific person — do you think you could stop it?' He said, 'Mr. Trump, I'd be able to stop it in one week.' And I believed him 100 percent," Trump said on the O'Reilly show.
"We've discredited this claim months ago," department spokesman Frank Giancamilli said in a statement Tuesday, according to NBC News Chicago. "No one in the senior command at CPD has ever met with Donald Trump or a member of his campaign."
"The best way to address crime is through a commitment to community policing and a commitment to stronger laws to keep illegal guns and repeat violent offenders off the street," Giancamilli said.
The Trump campaign clarified the candidate's comments to the Tribune.
"He didn't say in the senior command. Those are your words," Hope Hicks, a Trump spokeswoman, told the Tribune by email. "Mr. Trump spoke with some talented and dedicated police officers on a prior visit."
Hicks says that by "very top police," the billionaire real estate mogul meant "capable, smart and talented."
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