Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Friday appeared to suggest that police officers should not respond to reports of sexual assault
The video: Ellison made the comment during a video call about police reform that was hosted by the nonprofit Meridian International Center.
- The conversation was moderated by “PBS News Hour” White House Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor and also featured Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat.
Ellison, a former Minnesota congresswoman, suggested reallocating funding for police to other local services, saying an “armed paramilitary response” was not appropriate for all crimes.
- “If you’re a woman who has been a victim of a sexual assault, and the assailant has ran away, wouldn’t you rather talk to somebody who is trained in helping you deal with what you’re dealing with as opposed to somebody whose main training is that they know how to use a firearm?” he said, in comments that were seized upon and circulated by the GOP.
- “We need to reconsider how we do policing.”
Addressing the movement to “defund” the police, Ellison said some form of law enforcement was necessary, but he endorsed what he suggested was the spirit of activists’ demands.
- “The language is designed to provoke,” he said. “They are trying to provoke us into what? A new conception of how we maintain safety.”
- Apparently blaming recent riots on the police, he added, “Can we do [policing] in a way that does not have the attendant human rights abuses that have been causing everything from deaths to riots to injuries to lack of trust in policing?”
Ellison’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Police reform: The attorney general is among a number of prominent Democrats who have backed reallocating police resources following George Floyd’s May 25 death in Minneapolis police custody, a case that he is prosecuting.
- Progressive activists have pushed measures, largely unproven, that would see social workers and other non-law enforcement agents performing duties currently carried out by officers.
- In Minneapolis, the city council has moved to “abolish” the municipal police department, despite pushback from some black community leaders.
