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SEATTLE – On Thursday, Seattle’s mayor, Bruce Harrell, went head-to-head in a debate with his opponent, Katie Wilson, ahead of the November general election in Washington. One particular comment quickly gained online attention.
One of the hot button issues, along with Seattle’s rising housing costs, was public safety. About 34 minutes into the hour-long debate, moderators asked the two candidates vying for Seattle’s top office if the city was “too lax on repeat offenders.”
The question:
Moderator Emily Parkhurst with Formidable Media asked the below question, with FOX 13’s Hana Kim, also moderator, following up with the mayor about balancing public safety with accountability when it comes to repeat offenders in the community.
“FBI statistics have shown that, in 2024, Seattle had the fourth-highest overall crime rate compared to other large cities. The crime numbers this year overall seem to be on a better path than last year. But, Mr. Harrell, it’s no secret that repeat offenders are driving much of this crime. Is the city too lax on repeat offenders?”
Bruce Harrell’s response to questions about Seattle’s repeat offenders
Harrell called the question “interesting” and noted that he was not sure exactly how to answer, because he did not know how “lax” was being gauged by the panel. He then said it was important to catch criminals in the act, and repeated a call for 1,500 officers, which has been a key messaging point in his campaign for reelection. The following statement came shortly afterwards, and has become a clip circulated online to wide audiences across the country.
“When this person is committing six or seven crimes, I don’t know his or her story. Maybe they were abused as a child. Maybe they’re hungry. But my remedy is to find their life story to see how we can help. First, I have no desire to put them in jail, but I need to protect you, and that’s the calibration that we have,” Mayor Harrell said.
“I put police officers on the stand. I’ve cross-examined them. So, whether they commit seven or eight crimes, to me, is not the issue. The issue is, why are they committing these crimes? And so we have a health-based strategy,” Harrell continued.
Katie Wilson responds to questions about repeat offenders
Wilson advocated for the city’s leadership to do more work with effective diversion programs for repeat offenders. One of these programs already in use in Seattle is Law Enforcement Effective Diversion (LEAD). Programs like this often connect people with alternative community case management resources instead of immediately going for jail bookings.
“Unfortunately, our current mayor, in previous budgets in his term, has severely cut funding for the LEAD program. But, this is exactly the kind of program that we need in order to address the problem of repeat offenders, especially for low level crime, without just giving people long jail sentences which, frankly, doesn’t work either,” Wilson said.
The debate, posted in full:
Reactions online to Mayor Harrell’s comments
Posts online began racking up millions of views heading into the weekend from coverage by publications like the New York Post and Newsweek, to conservative pages like Joe Rogan Podcast News, End Wokeness, and local Seattle pages like dubsea.
Online commenters began chiming in to various clips and pulled quotes from the debate question. One video has garnered nearly seven million views on X (formerly Twitter).
Conservative Seattle radio host Ari Hoffman posted to his more than 50,000 followers a clip of the mayor’s answer with the caption, “I award you no points & may God have mercy on your soul.”
Right wing account Libs of TikTok posted a clip the morning after the debate to its 4.5 million followers.
The post below is from a fan-run account dedicated to covering Joe Rogan’s podcast and similar topics, not from the commentator himself.
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Ramsey.Pfeffinger@fox.com (Ramsey Pfeffinger)
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