Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss the potential run for governor of Michigan by former police chief James Craig and the challenges he’ll face.
Leahy: Well Crom, I don’t know about you, but I am really enjoying the new Shoot 270 Ranges at the Nashville Glock Store.
Carmichael: You know, I have had now three lessons, and I will tell you you can learn a lot more shooting with an instructor than just going into any old downrange and shooting that way. Instructors are great.
Leahy: I’ve never shot at a lane range. Should I try one?
Carmichael: I don’t know why you should. Why go to Class B when you can go to Class A, which is the Glock Store.
Leahy: Makes sense. That’s a very good point. Now you use Shoot270.com to book your sessions. Is it easy?
Carmichael: Yeah. Yeah, it’s very easy. And if you don’t want to do that, you can call them and that’ll work, too. If you use the Shoot270.com website, they’ve got a reservation system right there and it works great.
Leahy: Shoot270.com. I’m logging in right now. And Crom, I just have to say I love going to the Glock Store.
Carmichael: It is fun.
Leahy: It is fun. And you learn a lot.
Carmichael: Oh, yeah.
Leahy: Especially if you’re new to shooting guns, you learn a lot.
Carmichael:Â Not only that, that makes it a lot of fun.
Leahy: Yeah, it’s a fun place.
Carmichael: It is a lot of fun.
Leahy: It’s an impressive place. You know, one guy who learned a long time ago how to shoot a gun: James Craig, former police chief, Detroit. Do you like that segue?
Carmichael: Great segue. That’s very impressive. There’s a great article in The Journal back on July 9th. And they’ve interviewed him and they ask him questions about why is it – why did Detroit not have all of the violence that all the other big cities had?
And he said the Police Department in Detroit is very, very heavily minority. And they have worked very, very hard over the years. And he was chief of police there, I believe, for eight years.
Leahy: Eight years.
Carmichael: They worked very, very hard within the community to explain to the people in the community, it doesn’t do you any good to burn down your own community.
It doesn’t do you any good to trash the merchants who serve your community. So not only is it not smart for you to do it, our police department is not going to allow you to do it.
The police department there in working with the community, then the community held up their end of the bargain. And if there are any outside agitators, which is what happens a lot, Craig shut down the outside agitators.
The outside agitators figured out pretty quickly, don’t go to Detroit. You’ll get arrested if you’re trying to stir up trouble. And so now he is considering running for governor of Michigan.
Leahy: Please. Please do run against Gretchen Whitmer, the face of left-wing totalitarianism in America, the Democrat.
Carmichael: And he tries to tell her, he said, look, he said, we gave up kings and queens back in 1776. And it’s refreshing, by the way, that he used 1776 as the year of the change.
Leahy: Yes.
Carmichael: And he said that’s the year that we said tyrants be gone. And so he’s considering running. I hope he does run.
Leahy: I hope he does run. He’s born in Detroit. It’s a very interesting background. He went to work for, as I guess, a beat cop for the Detroit Police Department from 1977 to ’81.
He was laid off in ’81, so he went West. He spent three decades as a police officer in Los Angeles.
Carmichael: Wow.
Leahy: Then, in 2009, he was named police chief in Portland for two years. In 2011 and 2013, he was chief of police in Cincinnati. And then in 2013, police chief in Detroit. This guy knows policing well.
Carmichael: That’s well said. He understands policing. But he also understands the role of police and the importance of the broken windows theory of policing.
And so they work closely with the community and the community in Detroit. Now, by the way, Detroit is still a fairly violent place compared to other cities. It’s a violent place.
In one other segment, what I’d like to do is talk about the root causes of that violence, especially within Black and Hispanic communities – but a primarily Black community.
Leahy: Well, if you’re a Democrat, you would say the root cause is poverty.
Carmichael: Well, then that’s exactly right. That’s what they would say. Now you have to then ask yourself, is poverty the root cause, or is there a root cause of poverty?
This gets to the question of simple-versus-complex problems. And in the case of racial inequities, I think you have to go back six different steps to find the root cause.
And there may not be a single root cause. There may be two that are equally powerful. And then you might be able to argue that one of those precedes the other.
But they definitely are the cause of poverty. Poverty is not the beginning point. Poverty is not the endpoint either. But poverty is not the beginning point of solving the problem.
And so the way the Democrats are trying to approach the issue is not going to solve the problems. Craig is somebody who understands that. We haven’t mentioned to our audience that Craig is Black.
And if he runs for governor, then it will be a very interesting contrast between a rich White woman running for re-election and a Black former police chief who should have tremendous name recognition and popularity in Detroit.
Leahy:Â I think he would do very well in that. The problem he’s going to face is this: Jumping into the political arena even if you look like you’re a strong candidate. As chief of police, that’s a highly political job.
Carmichael: Sure it is.
Leahy: No question about that. He’s got a little bit of that background, but it’s a bare-knuckles game in politics. It really is a bare-knuckles game.
Carmichael: Maybe. But he’s up to it.
Leahy: Do you think so?
Carmichael: Oh, yeah. And I’ve seen him interviewed, and I’ve seen him interviewed by people who are hostile to him. And he can handle it. He handles it great because he has logic and truth on his side.
Leahy: I’m rooting for him.
Listen to the full second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Detroit Police Chief James Craig” by City of Detroit.
