Georgia Democrats Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff Silent as Atlanta Homicides Skyrocket

As Atlanta, Georgia’s rate of homicides skyrockets to a two-decade high, Democrat Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have remained silent after previously suggesting their commitment to cutting funds for law enforcement agencies.

The shooting death of a 16-year-old girl in Atlanta over Christmas weekend has brought the city’s homicide rate to its highest count in two decades. Likewise, the recent shooting of a 7-year-old girl in Georgia has drawn national headlines.

This year, there have been at least 154 homicides in Atlanta. This is the highest number of homicides since 1998 when there were 154 deaths citywide for the year. In comparison, despite the Chinese coronavirus crisis, the Atlanta Police Department investigated 99 homicides last year — a more than 55 percent increase in less than a year.

In response to the death of 7-year-old Kennedy Maxie, who was shot in the head while riding in a car with family members on a shopping trip, Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) said “those responsible for this evil must be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Warnock, Loeffler’s Democrat challenger, has not yet commented on the case. In June, Warnock said “we certainly need to demilitarize the police” and suggested Americans “reimagine policing,” language that has often been deployed by Black Lives Matter activists.

“We need to reimagine policing and reimagine the relationships between law enforcement and communities,” Warnock said. “We certainly need to demilitarize the police so we can rebuild the trust between the police and the community.”

Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), running to defend his seat against Ossoff, called Atlanta’s rising homicide rate “tragic” and said more funding, not less, should be provided to police departments.

Ossoff, in June, claimed police officers “have a huge problem with police brutality” and “are heavily militarized” and suggested their funding needed to be “on the line.”

“You have to have national standards for the use of force, and yeah, you’ve got to be able to hold individual officers and entire departments accountable, and there also has to be funding for those departments on the line,” Ossoff said.

“We have pervasive racism and classism in the criminal justice system that victimizes African Americans and people without wealth and connections,” Osssoff continued. “And we have a huge problem with police brutality, and our police forces are heavily militarized.”

Georgia’s Senate runoff election is January 5.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.