Ex-Harris aide Sanders-Townsend says more police won’t make streets safe for all

MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend pushed back on increased police presence in D.C., claiming during a panel Tuesday that, as a Black woman, she doesn’t believe more officers make communities safer—particularly in predominantly Black neighborhoods.

Sanders-Townsend, who served as chief spokesperson and senior adviser to former Vice President Kamala Harris before joining MSNBC in 2022, spoke on President Donald Trump’s new initiative to stop crime in the nation’s capital. 

Trump announced Monday that he plans to deploy approximately 800 National Guard troops and assume oversight of the Metropolitan Police Department to tackle rising crime in Washington, D.C. The announcement caused shockwaves across media, but some, like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, hinted that there may be some truth to Trump saying there is a crisis. 

“There has been a problem in D.C. It’s not as bad as it was 2 or 3 years ago, but it’s not as safe as Manhattan. It’s not as safe as the nation’s capital should be. By the way, I’ve lived in D.C. for 32 years. I can go chapter and verse if you’d like me to,” Scarborough said. 

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Sanders-Townsend appeared openly shocked at Scarborough’s words and pushed back, citing her experience as having lived in D.C. for the last 10 years and her husband running the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington. 

“It is perceived violence amplified by some actual real acts of violence,” she said before adding, “the way I’ve heard D.C. being described this morning is like it’s a city under siege, like it’s a dangerous place, clutching your pearls, you’ve got to keep your bag under your dress when you leave the house. And that’s just not true.”

She said that the conversation is revolving around these instances of “juvenile crime” that Trump is using as a pretext for his “authoritatrain overreach.” 

Sanders-Townsend argued there is just barely enough real crime to make people think that Trump may have some legitimate reason to take such action, but all the while, people are “ignoring the fact that more police officers on the street are not going to fix the issue of juvenile crime.”

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Scarborough urged her to clarify, asking, “You don’t think more police make streets safer?”

“No, Joe. I’m a Black woman in America,” she said. “I do not always think that more police make streets safer. When you walk down the streets of Georgetown, you don’t see a police officer on every corner, but you don’t feel unsafe.”

“So what is it about talking about places like southeast D.C., right, Ward 8, if you will, that people say, ‘Well, we need more officers to make us safe?’ I think we have to rethink what safety means in America,” Sanders-Townsend argued.