Brian O'Hara

I believe the FBI will still do a thorough investigation because that's what they do.

That's what the people who staff this agency here, that's what they do every day.

But that's the problem.

The way this has played out has taken all sense of legitimacy away from many people.

And that's very unfortunate.

Well, I had asked the mayor to have the National Guard on standby as this was initially unfolding because it was so unpredictable.

I was afraid that once it came to the point

where we might need the National Guard, it would probably take too long to get them here.

So that's why I'm glad they were on standby.

Going forward, it's my understanding that there is additional federal law enforcement being added to the state, specifically to conduct more of these operations.

That is concerning.

The number one priority that I worry about in terms of erasing work that we've done is

is ultimately erasing the gains that we've made rebuilding the department and being able to reduce crime.

In June of 2020, immediately after the destruction of the city, the burning of a police station here, in that one month, we had about as many shootings in one month as the city used to have in half a year.

And that level of crime stayed very high.

And, you know, now the last couple of years has started to come down.

And it's come down despite not having enough officers.

And we finally have started to rebuild.

And I'm just afraid if we have another large-scale unrest that we are both going to have a dramatic increase in crime, yet again, that's predictable, as well as another mass exodus of the department.

And we just – we cannot sustain that.