The founder of a popular progressive Washington, D.C.-area restaurant chain stood by his previous calls to defund the police and abolish prisons after one of his joints was hit by an attempted armed robbery late Sunday night.
Busboys and Poets, which operates as a restaurant, bar, bookstore and “safe space” for progressives to gather, is the latest example of the violent crime wave gripping the nation’s capital.
Andy Shallal — the founder and CEO of Busboys and Poets — confirmed to Fox News Digital that nothing was stolen from the business in the robbery and that he believes it was likely committed by local “kids with nothing better to do” that are looking to “terrorize people.”
“I think there’s been an uptick in crime, not just in D.C. but throughout the country, and D.C. is no exception, of course,” Shallal said in the Monday phone interview.
The restaurant chain founder defended his past “defund police” tweets on Monday, saying he stands by them “more than ever.”
“You cannot reform a broken system. You have to dismantle it and start over. Kudos to Minneapolis City Council for taking the lead to dismantle the police department,” Shallal tweeted in June 2020. “Next is abolishing prisons. #DefundPolice #protests #BlackLivesMatter #keepthemomentum”
“I think the problem we have here is when the police show up, the incident has already happened. The problem has already occurred,” Shallal told Fox News Digital. “So for us to have the police — it’s nice to have them to show up, but what are we doing to stop the root causes of what makes people do stuff like this?”
Shallal said that when he calls the police, it is “usually something terrible that’s just happened” and said that law enforcement “can’t un-terrible something.”
“When we talk about defunding the police, just to be clear, it is to divert some of the funds that go to the police to services that make it easier for the police to do their jobs,” Shallal said, adding he believes police departments should hire more social workers and mental health counselors to “take away” the police’s responsibility to “have to deal with all that and divert them from what they really need to do.”
Story continues at: Still want to defund the police?
