Seattle council member Juarez smacks down colleague’s anti-cop position

Watch above video from 5:33 to hear Seattle council member Mike O’Brien’s statements, and council member Debora Juarez’s response.

Seattle City Council member Debora Juarez faced off with her colleague on the dais when he argued that people are afraid of the officers who will occupy a proposed police station in Seattle.

Despite a decision 20 years in the making, Seattle City Council member Mike O’Brien continues to try and stop the City of Seattle from constructing a much-needed Seattle police station in the North Precinct. At a council briefing Monday, Juarez didn’t let him off easy.

Related: Seattleites worried about proposed North Precinct police “bunker“

O’Brien’s reasoning? He claims (in his most sensitive-sounding tone) that some community members “…are afraid of the people in that building and what that building stands for.”

He said it was disappointing that a “racial equity toolkit” wasn’t done on this building project.

Just so we’re clear: Mike O’Brien, who desperately wants to become mayor of Seattle — which explains why he’s working extra hard at placating the activist vote — is siding with anti-cop activists who treat police officers like murderous lepers. But this is what he does well: offer up a dose of white paternalism. That he, as a white guy, is there to protect people of color from the evil police. What on Earth would people of color do without O’Brien as protector?

Much to her credit, council member Juarez vehemently defended the project and wasn’t having any of this white paternalism nonsense. Here’s her defense, in part:

I don’t know about the rest of the world but I am not afraid of a building. I’m not afraid of the people in the building … I’m really getting tired of people making this issue about some people are afraid of people in a police station … I’m not just spouting out political rhetoric to gain political points … if you make this a divisive issue about that, then we will have a problem.

Juarez said she “…was born and raised in a community with violence. I’ve been the victim” before rejecting the nonsense O’Brien was spouting.

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