Oakland is one of the most dangerous places in the world, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently told a reporter.
But to its mayor, there's another place that's much more dangerous.
“The most dangerous place in America is Donald Trump’s mouth,” Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a tweet Wednesday.
Trump's views on the 400,000-person city in California's East Bay were documented in a New York Times Magazine article called "Mr. Trump's Wild Ride," published Wednesday. Trump was discussing a bombing in Baghdad when he was asked what he thinks is the most dangerous place in the world he's visited.
Let me be clear, regarding @nytimes story, the most dangerous place in America is Donald Trump's mouth.
“There are places in America that are among the most dangerous in the world,” Trump told reporter Robert Draper. “You go to places like Oakland. Or Ferguson. The crime numbers are worse. Seriously.”
Oakland is indeed a crime-ridden city. On the one hand, the final number of homicides investigated by Oakland police in 2015 was 83, according to FBI statistics. The East Bay Times reported 93 homicides in 2015, which was seven more than in 2014. But that figure was still far below the city's high of 175 in 1992, the East Bay Times reported.
And in 2015, Oakland was listed as the country's third most dangerous city in the United States, behind Detroit and Memphis, FBI crime data shows, though the definition for dangerous crime and the parameters of cities used vary. For instance, the Insurance Journal put Oakland in the No. 9 spot for the country's most dangerous cities.
But crime rates do seem to be improving. As Schaff's office pointed out, that as of Monday, violent crime was down 14 percent in Oakland and homicides were down 43 percent.
And in terms of being the most dangerous place in the world? Caracas, Venezuela; San Pedro Sula, Honduras; and San Salvador, El Salvador win the notorious spots 1, 2 and 3.
Oakland's longest serving city councilmember Larry Reid, who called Trump an "idiot," says it's time for Trump to see what the city has to offer.
"Mr. Trump, stop shooting from the hip," Reid said. "Come visit the areas you're talking about and you'll appreciate Oakland like everybody else appreciates Oakland."
NBC Bay Area's Jodi Hernandez contributed to this report.
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