NC AG candidate shared false info on crime, then deleted it. His response? Ask my opponent

Republican Attorney General candidate and Congressman Dan Bishop shared fake information about crime statistics online Monday, then deleted his post.

Bishop shared an X post from right-wing personality Greg Price that falsely said FBI data claimed there were zero homicides in Los Angeles and New Orleans last year, and that FBI data showing a drop in crime “relies on” there being no homicides in those cities.

“The falsehoods we are expected to choke down are ridiculous,” Bishop wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

But the FBI data provides those numbers. The Los Angeles Police Department reported 325 homicides in 2023. New Orleans police reported 198.

The post Bishop shared only shows a screenshot of demographic data left blank.

Bishop campaign aide Jim Blaine on Tuesday declined to directly address the now-deleted social media post from his boss.

“Do you think you will write any stories about Jeff Jackson’s voting record this year?” he said, referring to the Democratic candidate in the race, also a congressman from the Charlotte area.

Bishop’s spokesperson, Pat Ryan, did not answer questions Tuesday about why Bishop shared the post or whether Bishop believed the FBI’s statistics.

Ryan instead, in an email, criticized Jackson and The Charlotte Observer.

What FBI crime stats show

Bishop has attacked the FBI. In 2022, he said Republicans “ must smash the FBI into a million pieces.”

FBI crime statistics come from local law enforcement and then go into a larger report. The numbers give police, government officials and the public a broad idea of crime trends, though they are sometimes incomplete .

Nationally, violent crime saw a drop in 2023. Murders dropped dramatically.

In North Carolina, too, violent crime dropped last year, according to the FBI’s data. That includes homicides.

Despite national trends, homicides in Charlotte have increased this year . More people were killed in the city from January through June of this year than in the first six months of any year since at least 2015, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.