Chicago’s grim total of 762 homicides in 2016 is being partly blamed on Black Lives Matter activists by the city’s former top police officer.

Garry McCarthy, the former superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, told radio host John Catsimatidis on Sunday that activists have sown a deadly “political atmosphere of anti-police sentiment.”

“So what’s happening, and this is ironic, is that a movement with the goal of saving black lives at this point is getting black lives taken, because 80 percent of our murder victims here in Chicago are male blacks,” Mr. McCarthy said, Fox News reported Tuesday.

To put the Windy City’s violence into perspective, its 3,550 shooting incidents in 2016 was roughly 1,100 more than 2015. Homicides in 2015 tallied 485.

“Chicago is probably the worst example of something that has happened across the country,” Mr. McCarthy added.

Mr. McCarthy, who was fired after the October 2014 killing of Laquan McDonald by Officer Jason Van Dyke, said Black Lives Matter creates incentives in the community for “non-compliance,” Fox reported.

McDonald, 17, was shot 16 times on Oct. 20, 2014, after slashing car tires while high on the hallucinogenic drug PCP.

Officer Van Dyke, 38, was suspended without pay or benefits and charged with first-degree murder.

“Criminals watch TV, pay attention to the media,” current Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Monday, a local NBC affiliate reported. “They see an opportunity to commit nefarious activity.”