Fox News pundit Lisa Marie Boothe falsely claims Miami is safer than New York City

Fox News contributor Lisa Marie Boothe on Friday taunted and slammed a network guest for claiming crime rates in New York were similar to Florida, explaining that she lives in Miami and “we don’t have those issues there.” “.

Despite Boothe’s confident swagger, Florida’s homicide rate is actually much higher than New York’s — and the same is true of Miami compared to New York City. Additionally, the two cities’ violent crime rates are similar, while both have seen increases in homicides and serious assaults.

With Fox News spending much of the past year portraying Democrat-run cities — NYC in particular — as dystopian criminal hellscapes, the network welcomed former New York State Senator David Carlucci to address Boothe on the subject on Friday afternoon to discuss. In this case, the conversation revolved around the release without bail of a Sucker Punch suspect from New York City.

Carlucci first noted that while crime has increased in urban areas, it has also increased nationwide — including in GOP-led rural America.

“It’s a problem for the left and the right. The reality is that crime is on the rise across the country,” Carlucci told Fox News host Trace Gallagher. “New York City is still one of the safest major cities in the world. The crime rate is relative to what we see in the media.”

He added: “There’s crime that’s increased, but it’s relative to what they saw when we emerged from the late 2000s recession. The homicide rate in New York is nothing compared to the 1980s and 1990s. It was five times higher. We could point to guns. It’s what’s killing people in this country, and Republicans still refuse to do anything about it.”

After saying, “You can make an argument, but people don’t believe it,” Gallagher added anecdotal evidence that he’s seen people openly stealing from drugstores three times in the past year, and nobody’s tried to stop them to prevent. The news host then yelled that “Republicans have not called for defunding the police” before addressing Boothe.

The right-wing pundit launched into a typical Fox News tirade about how crime only happens in “liberal cities run by liberal mayors and George Soros’ prosecutor who wants criminals out of prison,” before telling Carlucci that it’s his “reality that’s kind of creating the problem.” She then noted that rising crime is what made her become a “first-time gun owner” and move from New York to Florida.

“The crime rate in Florida is just as bad, if not worse, than New York,” the ex-lawmaker shot back, only for Boothe to cut him off.

“That’s not true,” she asserted confidently. “I live in Miami. We don’t have those problems there, my friend.”

Carlucci continued to defend criminal justice reform in New York City, calling it a “work in progress” as Boothe dramatically exclaimed “Oh my God” before taunting the Fox News guest.

“Is this guy real?” Boothe snorted when Gallagher bluntly replied, “Yep.”

Regardless of Boothe’s defiant protests, the facts are clear that Miami’s crime rates are equal to or worse than New York City’s – despite the right-wing media’s breathless portrayal of the Big Apple’s safety.

According to the FBI’s 2020 Uniform Crime Report, Florida’s homicide rate was 5.9 homicides per 100,000 people and the violent crime rate was 384 per 100,000. New York, on the other hand, had a homicide rate of 4.2 and a violent crime rate of 364 during the same period.

For New York City, the homicide rate in 2020 was 5.6 per 100,000 people, slightly below the national average of 6.5. However, Miami had a homicide rate of 12.8 per 100,000 in 2020 — more than double NYC. However, Miami’s violent crime rate of 556 in 2020 was slightly lower than New York City’s of 584.

As for spikes in crime rates, Politifact found earlier this year that New York has seen a larger spike in homicides than Texas and Florida — both states touted as “tough on crime” by conservatives.

At the same time, Texas and Florida both saw double-digit increases in homicides in 2020, and their homicide rates were still much higher than New York’s. For its part, Miami saw a 42 percent increase in homicides, compared to NYC’s 47 percent increase in 2020. Meanwhile, the overall increase in serious assaults in New York was far less than the other two states.

Boothe would later defend her claims, take to twitter to claim that “there are no more safe neighborhoods in NYC” and that “random people in downtown Miami are not being beaten by convicted sex offenders who let loose NYC-style prosecutors out.”