Biden: ‘We Don’t Need More Cops,’ Need ‘More Social Workers’ But Also Need More Community Police Officers

During an interview on Tuesday for Wednesday’s BET News interview special “Black America Votes: The Biden Interview,” President Joe Biden said that “most cops are killed responding to a domestic violence event. So, we don’t need more cops, what we need is more social workers.” But also that “we need another 100,000 community police officers working with communities and bringing people in who are social workers, people who are people who know how to put neighbors together.”

Biden said, “[I]f you look at what happened with George Floyd, we didn’t get the legislation. So, I took executive action, made sure these guys have got to wear cameras and everybody has a cop — everything’s on. It’s changed. It’s changed the way things have — not…as far as it should change, but it’s changed things. We’re also in a situation where, if you take a look at what we’ve done in terms of the number of police officers for — most cops are killed responding to a domestic violence event. So, we don’t need more cops, what we need is more social workers. We need more people who are in communities building coalitions. That’s growing across the country, that’s growing in neighborhoods, that’s growing, and we have to keep doing it. We have to — we need another 100,000 community police officers working with communities and bringing people in who are social workers, people who are people who know how to put neighbors together.”

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