The Chicago Police Department has denied Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's claim that he met with a "top" Chicago officer and argued the city's violence would not be solved with "tough police tactics,” this week.

CPD spokesperson Frank Giancamilli said on Tuesday in a statement, “we've discredited this claim months ago. No one in the senior command at CPD has ever met with Donald Trump or a member of his campaign."

Trump said in an interview on Monday that he believed Chicago's violence could be stopped using "tough police tactics," telling that he met a "top" Chicago officer who reportedly said that he could "stop much of this horror show that’s going on" within a single week.

Trump added that he knew officers in Chicago who would put an end to violent crime "if they were given the authority to do it," a claim that Giancamilli refuted.

Giancamilli added, "Beyond that, the best way to address crime is through a commitment to community policing and a commitment to stronger laws to keep illegal guns and repeat violent offenders off the street".

Trump told O'Reilly that he didn’t ask the officer for specifics on the plan because he  wasn’t the mayor of Chicago, but added that police would be "much tougher than they are right now." Trump added, "I’m sure he’s got a strategy. I didn’t ask him his strategy." Trump also claimed that he submitted the officer’s name for some sort of job.

By Prakriti Neogi