Seattle mayoral candidate nearly shot by thieves outside home, calls out city's police 'manpower' problem

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Seattle mayoral candidate says the police ‘do not feel supported' by local leaders'

Seattle mayoral candidate Randall on crime surge in the city.

Seattle mayoral candidate Lance Randall on Thursday raised concern over the lack of support for police officers in the city after almost getting shot while in his bedroom. 

Komo News reported on Monday that the Seattle mayoral candidate had a run-in with armed catalytic converter thieves outside of his home.

"We do have a manpower problem. We’ve lost a lot of police officers and it is having a profound effect on public safety delivering system," Randall told "Fox & Friends."

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Looking through his window, he saw two men underneath a Toyota Prius that was parked across the street. He saw the pair trying to steal a catalytic converter out of the Prius. The devices have valuable metals inside of them that are worth $1,000.

Randall said he told his wife to call 911 as he headed outside to try to look at the suspect’s license plate.

"They saw me, picked up their things and got in their car, backing it up into a truck," he said. "When they turned the headlights out, I saw gunfire (fired) twice out of the sunroof."

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Randall said Seattle needs to have a "strong public safety service delivery system," which includes the police department, fire department, paramedic and human services providers. 

Furthermore, he said Seattle's "public safety service delivery system is damaged because of the loss of officers."

Randall went on to say, "Police officers that I’ve talked to feel that they are not appreciated on the work they try to do and they don’t feel supported by our local government, so we have to do a better job in working with our police department and we have to create the partnerships that are needed to keep everyone in cities safe and right now there’s a divide between the communities and the police departments."

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan will not seek a second term after a tough tenure in office in which she faced widespread criticism over her handling of several crises, including the establishment of an "autonomous zone" amid civil unrest in the city last summer.

More than 200 Seattle police officers quit their jobs amid months of frequent anti-law enforcement, racial injustice protests and riots in the city. Many of the officers cited an anti-police climate in the city – including in the City Council -- and disagreements with police management in their reasons for moving on, leaving the department with what Police Chief Adrian Diaz called a "staffing crisis" on Tuesday.

He said 180 police officers quit last year and another 66 officers so far this year. 

Some of the officers retired early while others took policing jobs in other cities or moved on to other careers, the officers said in exit interviews, according to KING-TV in Seattle.

Fox News' Brie Stimson contributed to this report