Actress Alyssa Milano said her support for the so-called Defund the Police movement was a call for a “radical reconstruction of society,” on Tuesday’s broadcast of ABC’s “The View.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “One of the other crises we’re going through is this sort of national debate on policing. You were in the news a few weeks ago when police were called near your house to investigate a man walking around with a gun. You tweeted you were targeted by right-wing media and trolls who reported that you called the police, which allegedly contradicted your support for the Defund the Police movement. What really happened here?”
Milano said, “Someone that was staying in my neighbor’s house, house-sitting, saw a man dressed all in black with what appeared to be a shotgun. She called the police. We found out about it from helicopters overhead, and about seven SWAT cars came to the house. By the way, you know there was reason to call the police in that moment. I think what we’re facing right now is the need for like almost a radical reconstruction of society.”
She continued, “I have used the hashtag Defund the Police. I want to be clear what that means. That means take funds—by the way. They’re funded very heavily. They are basically militarized at this point. We need to take some of that money and put it into the communities of color to chip away, the very least to chip away at the systemic racism and inequalities.”
She added, “In my opinion, the call to my house was exactly the type of situation that police officers are trained for and should be responding to. Of course, I will always support the police coming in and giving — making communities safe. But what we would also love to see is equally trained, non-police professionals respond to things like addiction and mental health issues and nonviolent events so that these brave officers can do their jobs that they’re so good at doing, that they demonstrated at our house. It was a scary incident. We were inactive lockdown for two hours as they were trying —by the way, it was a neighbor in the back that was shooting squirrels.”
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