Newly surfaced video and interviews from several years ago show Michigan Senate Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed questioning police funding and the necessity of guns, statements that appear to contradict his recent campaign assertions that he never called to "defund the police."
In a 2020 video for the University of Michigan titled, "Systemic Racism as a Public Health Issue," El-Sayed questioned the allocation of public funds. "Why are we investing so much in people with guns and less in people with the means of being able to invest in young folks, empower folks through their livelihoods, and empower them to live their best lives?" he asked.
El-Sayed continued in the video, "Do police really need to use guns? Do we need as much of a police force? And so, if we ask ourselves about how we spend money in the public, where that money goes, where it comes from, we need to make a lot better decisions about investing in the things that root out poverty, rather than investing in policing poverty."
During the height of the "defund the police" movement in 2020, El-Sayed also stated in an interview with Detroit Public Radio that while he did not directly use the phrase "defund the police," he believed the principles behind the movement were important. He described the concept as "disinvesting in the means of incarcerating someone or killing them on the streets and investing more in the means of educating and empowering and engaging communities with the means of being able to take on systemic poverty."
At the time, El-Sayed also proposed "refunding" the police, stating that taxpayer dollars should not be used to "buy war materiel to wage war in our streets." He added, "What we call that is, to me, less important than what we do on the problems on the ground."
El-Sayed is currently seeking the Democratic nomination in Michigan's Senate race, vying against Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. Republicans are seeking to flip the seat.
A spokesperson for El-Sayed, Roxie Richner, stated that El-Sayed worked closely with law enforcement during his time as director of Health, Human, and Veterans Services for Wayne County, Michigan, and that his perspective has become "more nuanced" with hands-on experience. Richner added that El-Sayed believes in improving law enforcement recruitment and retention, rejecting militarized policing, passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and opting for community violence intervention and behavioral health responses to reduce violence.
During a recent interview with CNN's Kasie Hunt, El-Sayed addressed his past statements, saying he deleted old tweets related to the issue because he did not want them to be "taken out of context." He characterized the focus on his past remarks as "clickbait in D.C."