Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday evening during the first presidential debate that he has a vision of police showing up to 911 calls with psychologists and psychiatrists who can “keep them from having to use force.”
Moderator Chris Wallace asked Biden about his “joint recommendation that came from the Biden-Bernie Sanders Task Force.”
“You talked about ‘reimagining policing,’” Wallace said. “What does reimagining policing mean, and do you support the Black Lives Matter call for community control of policing?”
“What I support is the police having the opportunity to deal with the problems they face,” Biden responded.
The 2020 Democrat nominee added:
They need more assistance. They need, when they show up for a 911 call, to have someone with them as a psychologist or psychiatrist, to keep them from having to use force and be able to talk people down. We have to have community policing like we had before, where the officers get to know the people in the communities. That’s when crime went down. It didn’t go up; it went down.
Wallace asked Biden: “Have you ever called the Democratic mayor of Portland or the Democratic governor of Oregon and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to stop this. Bring in the National Guard. Do whatever it takes to stop the days and months of violence?'”
Biden responded, “I don’t hold public office now. I am a former vice president.”
As Breitbart News reported in June, Biden’s campaign was asked about radical protesters’ demands for defunding the police, but the campaign declined to discuss the issue.
Reuters sought Biden’s response on the issue of defunding the police but reported, “A Biden campaign spokesman declined to comment.”