Ocasio-Cortez Doubles Down On Defunding The Police, Claims Concerns Over Crime Wave Are ‘Hysteria’

Far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) doubled down on her support for defunding the police during a video event this week, and claimed that concern over exploding crime rates across the U.S. are “hysteria.”

“The F.B.I. does not release full statistics until September, but homicide rates in large cities were up more than 30 percent on average last year, and up another 24 percent for the beginning of this year,” The New York Times reported, later adding that “in the aftermath [of George Floyd’s death], some criminologists attributed the spike in homicides to hesitancy among residents to turn to the police for help.”

Ocasio-Cortez downplayed the rise in crime, claiming that news headlines were “hysteria.”

“We are seeing these headlines about percentage increases,” she claimed. “Now, I want to say that any amount of harm is unacceptable and too much. But I also want to make sure that this hysteria, you know, that this doesn’t drive a hysteria and that we look at these numbers in context so that we can make responsible decisions about what to allocate in that context.”

WATCH: Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls the concerns over the spike in crime “hysteria” pic.twitter.com/MMZ2dlAhpM

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 25, 2021

Ocasio-Cortez later agreed with far-left Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who said during the video event that the police should be defunded.

“I agree with Representative Bowman, that I do believe that we need to reallocate resources away and that a big, you know, major causes of this — and by the way, I also think it’s important context because we hear on the news and media, they perpetuate this idea of crime wave, crime wave, crime wave, right?” she said. “And so this idea that a lot of us are panicked thinking that we are at some unprecedented level that we’ve never seen before.”

Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doubles down on Defund the Police, downplays crime wave pic.twitter.com/rZEUmmudyR

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 25, 2021

Bowman is facing controversy over his repeated calls to defund the police after The New York Post reported this weekend that he requested special police protection at his home in New York earlier this year.

“About a week after the Jan. 6th incident at the Capitol, we received a request from the Congressman’s office for increased police presence at his residence,” Yonkers Police Department Detective Lt. Dean Politopoulos told the New York Post. “In response, our Intelligence Unit was notified of the request and the local precinct instituted what is called a directed patrol at the Congressman’s home for the next two weeks.”

Politopoulos reportedly said that nothing unusual had been detected in Bowman’s neighborhood for years. The report noted that the day after the January 6 riot, Bowman told a radio host that he had been “safe pretty much throughout the event.”

A spokeswoman for Bowman claimed that the police were called because Bowman “received threats,” although she did not elaborate on the “threats,” and she reportedly avoided questions about Bowman’s hypocrisy given his repeated support for defunding the police.

This report has been updated to include additional information.

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