Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said on camera that police should not respond to women who dial 911 after being raped.
“If you’re a woman who’s been a victim of a sexual assault and the assailant has ran away, wouldn’t you rather talk to somebody who is trained in helping you deal with what you’re dealing with as opposed to somebody whose main training is that they know how to use a firearm, right?” he asked.
Ellison posed this question during a broadcast featuring himself, Democrat Congresswoman Karen Bass and Yamiche Alcindor, PBS’s White House Correspondent on July 17. As he spoke, both the congresswoman and reporter looked downward and did not interrupt.
The Republican National Committee research team discovered the clip and posted it across social media.
Ellison’s assertion that some variety of social workers, and not the police, should be responsible for handling violent crime is not unique. His own son, Jeremiah Ellison, has advocated this policy from his position on the Minneapolis City Council which seeks to disband or at least defund the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), replacing it with a “City Department of Community Safety.”
(RELATED: Keith Ellison’s Son Appears To Berate Officers Suffering From PTSD)
The Minnesota Attorney General is also wrong about the police’s ability to resond to rapes, according to an officer from Hennepin county who prefers to remain anonymous.
“Keith Ellison clearly is not even aware of the MN Post Board standards for police training. Licensed police officers receive a variety of training in multiple subjects including how to interview a rape victim. As a state leader he should be more familiar with state standards before he makes assumptions,” says the officer. This is the same officer who has delivered verifiably factual information to Alpha News previously.
The aftermath of Ellison’s recent Zoom meeting is not the first time he’s found himself facing controversy related to assault of women.
Karen Monahan says that Ellison physically abused her when they used to date.
In 2018, she posted a picture of a medical record detailing the alleged abuse.
When I post this, it gets deleted every time pic.twitter.com/uAJNx8AgF5
— Karen Monahan (@KarenMonahan01) September 19, 2018
Kyle Hooten
Kyle Hooten is Managing Editor of Alpha News. His coverage of Minneapolis has been featured on television shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight and in print media outlets like the Wall Street Journal.
