Families of school shooting victims slam Harris’ ‘sickening’ unearthed comments

Families of students killed in school shootings slammed Vice President Kamala Harris after comments she made in 2019 were unearthed this week in which she supported removing police officers from schools.

“My little brother was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting because of liberal policies like the ones Kamala is pushing here. I wish a police officer had been there to protect him. Students need more protection, not less!” said school safety advocate. Posted by JT Lewis on X Lewis' younger brother, Jesse Lewis, who was 6 years old at the time, was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut, which left 26 students and staff dead.

Lewis was responding to unearthed footage of Harris, who was a California senator in 2019, declaring her support for removing police officers from schools in an effort to “demilitarize” campuses.

“What we need to do is … demilitarize our schools and get police out of our schools. We need to face up to reality and tell the truth about the inequities around school discipline, particularly with black and brown boys being expelled and suspended as young as elementary school age, as I've seen.” Harris won in South Carolina in 2019.She was running for president as a California senator during the 2020 presidential election.

Kamala Harris called for removing police from schools to fight racial 'inequality' in 2019 interview

Harris attended the 2019 Presidential Judiciary Forum held at Benedictine University in Columbia, South Carolina, in October of that year. She is 2020 After winning the election and being announced as President Biden's running mate, a college student asked Harris how she would allow minors to have their records expunged so they can attend college, and whether that would include expunging “criminal conduct” rather than “just marijuana.”

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The Connecticut House of Representatives passed the state's largest gun control bill since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting by a vote of 96-51. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

“That's a great question and a great point, because when we talk about criminal justice reform, Juvenile justice system “Our justice system is in dire need of reform, and I know it. And I've seen it,” Harris responded, touting her 2020 campaign “action plan” on criminal justice reform.

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“I will end solitary confinement for juveniles, and that includes discussing and committing to what we will do to reduce juvenile incarceration, and laying out guidelines in terms of exactly what those numbers should be, because right now, in so many states, children are incarcerated. Even a few days of incarceration is traumatic for a child, but even more so when it continues for weeks, months or years,” she explained.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harris' campaign earlier this week to ask if she still supports removing police officers from schools but did not receive a response.

Workers use heavy machinery to demolish Building 1200 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Friday, June 14, 2024, in Parkland, Florida. On Feb. 14, 2018, a gunman entered the school and killed 17 people. (Miami Herald)

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Family members of school shooting victims joined Lewis in condemning Harris' 2019 comments, including Ryan Petty and Andrew Pollack, two fathers who lost their teenage daughters in the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

“It's reckless. It's extreme. Kamala wants to make our schools less safe. No child is safer if Kamala Harris is president,” said Petty, who lost her 14-year-old daughter, Alaina Petty, in a 2018 shooting. He responded by tweeting The Trump War Room posted a video of Harris' remarks.

On February 14, 2023, five years after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed, people attend a memorial service for the victims. On February 14, 2018, a 19-year-old former student opened fire at the school, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others. (Photo: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images) (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is sickening. My daughter was killed because of insufficient security at Parkland. We need more school security, not less!” Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter, Meadow Pollack, was also killed in the same shooting. Posted in X.

Governor Harris' support for removing police from schools came before the summer protests and riots that followed the killing of George Floyd during a police encounter on Memorial Day that year. Floyd's death reignited activists' calls to defund the police, with repercussions reverberating across the country, with liberal cities moving to cut police budgets and school boards voting to sever ties with police.

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In 2022, Education Weekly researchers found that at least 50 school districts either removed officers from schools or cut school police budgets between May 2020 and June 2022. But plans to remove officers from schools were short-lived in many jurisdictions as violence broke out on campuses as students returned to classrooms after the pandemic and resulting lockdowns.

Following violent incidents such as the Denver high school shooting and repeated school fights in an Alexandria, Virginia, school district, education officials across the country have backed away from police and brought them back to campuses to curb crime.

Vice President Harris has not given interviews or held a press conference since emerging as the Democratic presidential nominee. (Andrew Harnick/Getty Images)

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Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago last week, catapulting her to the top of the list of candidates after President Biden dropped out of the race last month amid growing concerns about his mental health.