Sen. Kelly Loeffler said ongoing violence in her home state of Georgia needs to come to an end.
During a Tuesday appearance on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom,” the Republican lawmaker praised Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for declaring a state of emergency and calling in the National Guard after there were 31 shootings that killed five people, including an 8-year-old girl, over the weekend.
“We’re seeing the breakdown of public safety in our communities and Georgians are very concerned and that's why the governor had to take this decisive action to bring in the National Guard and restore order because it's true, enough is enough,” Loeffler said. “The time has come to strengthen our support for law enforcement and end this terrible experiment.”
She ripped people calling to defund the police as violence surges in the state.
“The radical movement to defund the police is creating havoc for the safety of our communities,” she said. “I've been calling for an end to this senseless violence and I was criticized because I'm a conservative. But look what’s happened, a child has died and the governor has rightly shown decisive leadership and brought in the National Guard to regain order.”
One of the victims from the weekend shootings was Secoriea Turner, 8, who was riding in a car Saturday night in Atlanta when at least two people shot at the vehicle.
“This is tragic and my heart breaks for Secoriea Turner and her family,” Loeffler said. “This was a needless active murder that could've been prevented. It’s what I’ve been warning about for weeks. We need to stop the violence now.”
Loeffler said she introduced legislation last month that would withhold federal highway funding from states and local governments that answer to calls to “defund the police” and decrease funding to law enforcement. She also said she co-sponsored the Justice Act in the Senate “to make sure that we provide [police departments] the resources, that we root out the bad apples, that we get the data to the front lines to understand what's happening.”
“And the Democrats wouldn’t move on it and they are not truly trying to help us reform, they’re actually using it to politicize the defund the police movement,” Loeffler said. “It’s very dangerous.”
She said that law enforcement officers need to be given the ability to “do their jobs.”
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