Amid speculation surrounding the 762 homicides that took place in Chicago in 2016 – the highest number in two decades – the city's former police superintendent is blaming the Black Lives Matter movement for the murder spike

Garry McCarthy, who held the superintendent position for four years before getting fired in 2015 after his department withheld dash-cam footage of the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, said on the "Cats Roundtable" radio show that anti-police brutality protesters have led to a state of lawlessness and a political atmosphere of anti-police sentiment. Chicago, where the homicide rate rose by 58% from 2015 to 2016, is "probably the worst example of something that has happened across the country," McCarthy told host John Catsimatidis. "The simplest way to describe it is that we have created an environment where we have emboldened criminals and we are hamstringing the police," said McCarthy, echoing a widespread notion that the Black Lives Matter movement has driven a deeper wedge between minority communities and law enforcement.