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But Lightfoot later argued that, “We started seeing a downward trend in shootings and homicides really beginning in late July. The first federal agents who came to Chicago as part of Operation Legend didn’t really get here until Aug. 3.”

Let’s hope that downward trend continues or both officials might be running away from the city’s crime stats as eagerly as they embrace them now.

The problem is indeed too serious to be impeded by politics, but on a more positive side, politics give government officials that much more of an incentive to do a job worth boasting about.

Chicago hasn’t had that luxury in a long time. Although the vast majority of violent crime occurs in a minority of neighborhoods, it makes the entire city feel less safe, especially when it spills over into luxury areas like the looting rampage that occurred on the Magnificent Mile shopping district downtown in early August.

Politics also stumble occasionally into some serious issues. The operation was named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed in Kansas City, Mo., in June.

Suddenly in a summer that also has seen more senseless killings of young children by gunfire than any other in memory, little LeGend became the tragic face of the nation’s larger tragedy.

Among the most recent in Chicago is Dajore Wilson, 8, killed by gunfire as she sat with her parents in a car in the Canaryville neighborhood Monday.

Amid such miserably bad news, I am encouraged when I see politics put aside to bring leaders together in a constructive way. As wary as Lightfoot may be about Trump’s politics, she apparently gets along well with U.S. Attorney John Lausch, rooted in a friendship that began when they both served as federal prosecutors.

That’s promising. It’s easier for different levels of government to find solutions when they don’t have to worry so much about finding an advantage.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

(c) 2020 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.