Some loved ones of deceased school shooting victims were outraged Thursday afternoon after unearthed remarks by then-United States Senator Kamala Harris went viral.
Despite the deep fears every parent carries, Harris called for “demilitarizing our schools and taking police officers out of schools.”
Fox News has more details on the 2019 remarks by Vice President Harris that are resurfacing today:
“My brother was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting because of liberal policies like the one Kamala is pushing here… I wish there had been a police officer there to protect him. Students need more protection, not less!,” school safety advocate JT Lewis posted to X. Lewis' younger brother, six-year-old Jesse Lewis, was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut that left 26 children and staffers dead.
Lewis was reacting to unearthed footage of Harris in 2019, when she was a California senator, declaring her support of removing police officers from schools in an effort to “demilitarize” campuses.
“What we need to do about … demilitarizing our schools and taking police officers out of schools. We need to deal with the reality and speak the truth about the inequities around school discipline. Where in particular, Black and Brown boys are being expelled and or suspended as young as, I've seen, as young as in elementary school,” Harris said in 2019 in South Carolina, when she served as a California senator running for president during the 2020 cycle.
Harris joined the 2019 Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, in October of that year before she dropped out of the 2020 race and was announced as President Biden's running mate. A college student asked Harris how she would go about expunging the records of juveniles to allow them to attend college, including expunging “a criminal offense,” not “just a marijuana expungement.”
“That's a great question and a great point, because when we talk about reform of the criminal justice system, we've got to understand that the juvenile justice system is in dire need of reform, and I know that. And I've seen it,” Harris added, while sidestepping controversies over her own record on criminal justice.
These controversies include her decision to prosecute parents of truant children, which disproportionately affected low-income families and communities of color. Additionally, her choice not to seek the death penalty for a man convicted of killing a police officer has been a point of contention. Her office was also reportedly involved in fighting to uphold convictions that were later overturned due to new evidence or prosecutorial misconduct.
Another major controversy centers around Harris' enforcement of marijuana laws, especially given her later support for legalization. During her tenure as California attorney general, her office oversaw numerous marijuana-related prosecutions, which some argue contributed to the disproportionate incarceration of people of color for nonviolent drug offenses. She has also faced criticism for defending the use of prison labor for fighting wildfires and other state functions, which some have viewed as exploitative.
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