Donald Trump has a habit of using Chicago when he wants to make a point about runaway urban violence, regardless of what is happening on the city’s streets.

But when the president labels Chicago a “hellholle” as he did Tuesday and threatens again to “ send in the Feds! ” to boost his image as a law-and-order chief executive, law enforcement experts and violence prevention leaders say sending the National Guard to Chicago would amount to a piece of political theater at best and “a recipe for disaster” at worst.

Crime here has swung high and low in the decade since Trump became a fixture on the national political scene. It spiked during the pandemic but is now dropping for the fourth consecutive year to levels not seen in more than a decade, mirroring a national decline and cutting aga

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