Is a 'community-led' safety program a suitable replacement? Reaction from former Seattle city council candidate Ari Hoffman.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Griff welcome back the Seattle
City Council pushing to abolish
its police force just days after
fifty nine cops were hurt in violent
riots
under the bill. The cops would
be replaced with community led
prevention program.
Ari Hoffman once ran for City
Council.
What is going on in Seattle,
the experiment of the chop,
the failure of it wasnt clear
to elected officials when they
removed cops and five shoots,
resulted in two deaths of two
african american teenagers.
They want to expand that to the
city.
They have not put forth any
plans how to keep communities
safe at risk like the jewish
community, the asian community
who had incidents of violence
before
there was a shooting in Seattle
against the jewish Federation of
Greater Seattle
S, DOT, Wa Dot. T teams had to respond
theyre talking about cutting
that back
Griff. Why is the council doing
this
theyre really about
abolishing the police
department?
A lot of them said they would do
it when running for council.
This shouldnt be a surprise to
anybody.
This is more of their marxist
socialist ideology.
The question who is this
community group? Are they going
to replace the police department
with
the law enforcement assistance?
Diversion program has been a
failure.
They havent produced any
numbers since two thousand and fourteen,
where they divert criminals into
other forms of treatment, quote
unquote
so far, it hasnt worked out at
all.
They keep reoffending
and they are prolific offenders
who keep terrorizing residents
of downtown.
They fail along the policy path
and there is no recourse to the
citizens.
Griff we reached out to the
Seattle Police Department. We
havent heard back the chief
out there chief best, really in
a difficult spot.
How do they now handle this?
She called the decision.
Reckless,
the police department has a
petition gathering signature
effort, which was at over one hundred thousand
people. Last time. I checked it
theres with a rally yesterday to
show support for the Seattle
Police Department
and a lot of people who are not
normally heard are making their
feelings very well heard right
now, online
and in protests in public
Griff. I misspoke
we reached out to the Seattle
City Council, not the police
department.
My point was about the police
department
in a larger sense. Ari, a
Gallup poll number really
caught our attention.
Fifteen percent of Americans support
abolishing police departments,
while fifteen percent is perhaps a low
number.
If you consider the
ramifications of what that would
mean, it is really quite
frightening. Are you concerned
that, as goes Seattle will go the
country
the
I have often called Seattle
is canary in the coal mine for
rest of America?
This is the kind of stuff they
try out here.
It gets pushed out.
For example, this lead program,
law enforcement assistance,
diverse program was pushed out
across the country. T was basis
for bail reform law that turns
criminals loose in New York.
If you look what is happening in
New York, where african american
communities are asking for
police to be redeployed cut back
by Mayor De Blasio, the same
thing will happen here in
Seattle.
Seattle was the basis for a lot
of these failed policies.
That is very concerning to me
concerning to me how people are
not watching what is happening
in Portland and Seattle with
riots. People claim are peaceful
protest, which are anything, but
now they are in favor of
bringing this to their own
cities.
Griff Canary in the coal mine.
Transcript generated on 2020-08-02.