HARRIS FAULKNER (ANCHOR): When we talk about the percentages – the numbers, I don't want to talk about people as percentages, but the numbers of officers who've died of COVID in the country, that is something that people are looking at just in terms of safety here. But that hasn't persisted necessarily as high as it was at one point.
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JASON RANTZ (RADIO HOST): It's certainly true that there have been officers who have died from COVID. It's not necessarily COVID that they caught on the job, which I think is an important distinction here.
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FAULKNER: Real quickly, the politics of this. Democrat mayor, Chicago, Lori Lightfoot. I mean do these leaders realize that they are leading their own public into a corner with no one to protect them from being cornered? I mean, if something happens to you in the city of Chicago or Seattle potentially after people leave their jobs over the fight with these city councils and mayors, I mean, I thought their number one job was public safety. How do they stay in office?
RANTZ: Yeah, well, I mean these are cities that are run by folks who have been pushing defund policing. I think Lori Lightfoot has walked that back pretty significantly. I think Mayor Jenny Durkan here in Seattle has walked it back some but still council members are leaning into the defunding.
And what a better way to defund the police when you get them to quit on their own and claim well they were selfish; they didn't want to protect the public from COVID, which of course is a bogus excuse. But it's a way to do it without having to pass any legislation or any budget cuts -- 80% of the budget for the Seattle police department is personnel. So you lose a few of those officers, you get closer to that 50% defunding that they promised.
FAULKNER: And then they trick them by either making the testing nearly impossible on their shifts and not paid for or like in your city don't give them an alternative at all, rather. Just, you know, this way or the highway. It's a trick. It's not honest negotiation.