A woman from Queens, New York who lost her eye in a violent attack last fall torched Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (NY) suggestion that funding for police be given to public schools, parks, and libraries.
Elizabeth Gomes, 33, was brutally attacked at a subway station by a “homeless ex-con,” 41-year-old Waheed Foster, last year, according to the New York Post. On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez slammed Democrat Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to give “militarized” police their first raise in seven years.
“We are now at a point where officially, most officers are paid more than a teacher with a master’s degree,” Ocasio-Cortez said on the show. “We are defunding safety, defunding our public schools, defunding our public pools, defunding our parks [and] defunding our libraries.”
She added that “we are sending a message about who and what we care about.”
In an interview with Fox News, Gomes said the city has “lack of safety, lack of not having the right people there around us to take care of us when we need them.”
“At that moment, when I was running up the train station, I wasn’t thinking about calling up a teacher or calling a lifeguard for a pool. I was thinking about calling the police.”
“We need both, but safety do come first,” Gomes said in response to AOC’s suggestion that the funding be directed at schools and parks. “If you don’t make these children safe in school, how would you make them want to go to school? Once anybody feels in danger in any kind of way, they wouldn't want to go. You want to fix all these community places like pools and parks? But how would people want to go if there's no safety? I believe safety come with police officers."
"Once you put safety first, everything else will go right after it," Gomes added. "I cannot call a teacher if I need help. If a man is running me down, I cannot call a teacher. I'm going to have to call the police. I'm going to be praying for police, not a teacher."
The man who attacked Gomes was a career criminal, jailed multiple times, and at one point, reportedly committed murder.
“He shouldn't even have been walking the street at all with all the felons and cases he had behind him,” Gomes explained.
Last year, the New York Post reported that felony crimes on the New York City subway system escalated by 40 percent from 2021. This included robberies, rape, murder and other violent crimes, which Townhall covered.