July 30 2024
ABC News: In the summer of 2020, shortly after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, Harris gave a string of interviews amid nationwide protests calling for police reform in which she at times voiced support for some of the ideas behind the "defund the police" movement, calling for a "reimaging" of policing around the country.
In one of the interviews, a radio segment from June 10, 2020, with just over 5,000 views on YouTube, Harris told Power 106 Los Angeles host Nick Cannon that she believes "we have to redirect resources" from police to other areas of government, mentioning schools and small businesses.
Cannon, a popular actor who also hosts a radio show called "Nick Cannon Mornings," said to Harris in the interview: "But me, being a Howard graduate and having an abolitionist -- you know, but having that abolition spirit of, why do we need law enforcement anyway? ... I'm excited about some of the measures that we could take to better policing, but I feel like we should get rid of policing altogether."
In response, Harris said that she believed "we have to reimagine public safety in America" and argued that "for too long, people have confused achieving public safety with putting more cops on the street."
"So when we're talking about policing, I think of it in a number of ways, and there is that, which is that we have to redirect resources," Harris said. "And Nick, you may know this, in many cities in America over one-third of their city budget is placed, is paid to policing. ... Meanwhile, schools are suffering."
"We have to have this conversation about redirecting resources where they are needed to truly support communities to be healthy and therefore safe," Harris added.