Despite his past criticisms of Donald Trump, Rahm Emanuel has spoken to and met with the president-elect. | Getty Trump: Rahm Emanuel should seek federal help to stop Chicago violence

The city of Chicago had an especially violent 2016, and if its mayor, former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, can’t make the city safer, President-elect Donald Trump said he must seek the help of the federal government.

The Chicago Police Department announced Sunday that there were 762 murders in the city in 2016 and 4,331 shooting victims. It was the most murders the city has had in 20 years and higher than the totals of New York City and Los Angeles, the only two American cities larger than Chicago, put together. Trump cited those statistics in a post to Twitter on Monday, criticizing Emanuel, an Obama ally who left the White House to run for mayor of Chicago in 2010.


“Chicago murder rate is record setting - 4,331 shooting victims with 762 murders in 2016. If Mayor can't do it he must ask for Federal help!” Trump wrote.

Despite his past criticisms of Trump, Emanuel has spoken to and met with the president-elect, just as other big-city mayors have done. He used his face-to-face meeting with Trump last month to urge the president-elect and his staff to reconsider their hardline approach to illegal immigration. A spokesman for Emanuel said in a statement that the mayor was "heartened" to hear that Trump is taking an interest in crime prevention in Chicago.

"As the president-elect knows from his conversation with the mayor, we agree the federal government has a strong role to play in public safety by funding summer jobs and prevention programming for at-risk youth, by holding the criminals who break our gun laws accountable for their crimes, by passing meaningful gun laws, and by building on the partnerships our police have with federal law enforcement," Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins said in his statement. "We are heartened he is taking this issue seriously and look forward to working with the new administration on these important efforts."

The city’s grisly 2016 crime statistics prompted a demonstration along downtown Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, with hundreds of protesters, including Jesse Jackson and Rev. Michael Pfleger, carrying crosses bearing the names of murder victims.

President Obama is scheduled to deliver a farewell address from Chicago, his adopted hometown, later this month.