Dan Bongino: Dems were never interested in police reform, they wanted a 'political football'
Bongino says even if Republicans had the world's greatest police reform bill, Dems 'were going to shut it down'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Democrats were never interested in police reform,” former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent Dan Bongino told “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
“Here's what they’re really interested in: Democrat police reform,” Bongino, a Fox News contributor, continued. “They want a reform they could go and use as a political football to say, ‘Hey, look what we did.’ Not, ‘Look what the country did.’”
Bongino made the comments after host Ainsley Earhardt noted that several Democrats are saying they're ready to wait until 2021 to overhaul the criminal justice system.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Party leaders had hoped to use the national outcry for racial justice to enact sweeping police reforms before November, but a Republican-authored police reform bill failed in a Senate test vote last month after Democrats opposed the bill on the basis it did not go far enough.
Democrats can compromise now and adopt ideas that both parties support or push the debate into next year when Democrats hope to gain more power to dictate the terms of the bill by winning control of the Senate and the White House.
Bongino pointed out that Democrats “wanted to take credit for” police reform.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“If the Republicans did it, it was the greatest bill in the world, they were going to shut it down it wouldn't matter,” he said.
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On Monday, Bongino also reacted to the fact that a woman in New York City died after she was shot confronting a man setting off illegal fireworks in Brooklyn, according to the New York Post.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Shatavia Walls, 33, who was shot eight times earlier this month after asking the man to stop setting off the explosives, died from her injuries Friday night at a hospital, the Post reported, citing police sources.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams reportedly urged residents last month to “go talk to the young people or the people on your block who are using fireworks” instead of calling 911 or 311.
The Post reported that Adams, who last month said setting off illegal fireworks is a “nonviolent act,” insisted on Saturday that “the first line of interaction when it comes to non-criminal behaviors should be between neighbors.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}On Monday Bongino said, “This was, in this case, tragically bad advice.”
Bongino noted that Adams is a former police officer and has “spoken out against some of Mayor de Blasio's awful policies to be fair on this, but this was really brutally horrible advice.”
He then pointed out that “these suggestions that maybe we don't need a police officer at these scenes, maybe we need a social worker, this advice is typically given outside of Eric Adams who was a police officer, by people who have no experience with policing whatsoever.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Bongino then provided an example based off his experience as a former police officer saying, “The reason you get called to say a mental health scenario … is because the situation is not controllable by the people involved.”
“If you are calling the police, it's usually because what we would call at that point a violent EDP, a violent emotionally disturbed person,” Bongino explained. “I don't think people get that. That's the reason the cops show up in these mental health scenarios.”
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.