Ex-Chicagoland police chief wants cop murder to be federal crime: 'Attacks on police officers' up since 2020

Retired Riverside, Illinois Police Chief Tom Weitzel urges President-elect Trump to make cop killings a federal crime amid rising ambush attacks on officers since 2020.

"That's happened several times over the last couple of years, or fake 911 calls where – the whole purpose of the calls [is] to get the officer to respond and to open fire on that officer and kill that officer. That's happened many times. We had never seen that, you know, 10 years ago," he added. Jamie Joseph is a writer who covers politics. She leads Fox News Digital coverage of the Senate. 

Currently, killing state or local law enforcement officers can lead to a federal penalty only if the killing is committed to influence or retaliate against the officer's official duties and involves interstate commerce or federal jurisdiction. While some laws have been passed in recent years to curb the uptick in police killings, there's no official federal law that killing a police officer in any state is a felony because most cases are prosecuted under state law.