During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports,” Providence, RI Mayor Brett Smiley (D) said that he told people the city was safe even as the Brown shooter was on the loose because “kids needed to go to school, people needed to go to work. We needed to find the strength to start to take steps forward. And so, we tried to support them through those early steps with a tremendous show of law enforcement.” And with the person of interest who ended up not having any involvement in the shooting, “I allowed myself to think that maybe this was the person. I think the community allowed itself to think that maybe this was the person.”
Host Elizabeth Vargas asked, “[Y]ou’ve also had a lot of criticism from people in your community, particularly for going out shortly after the shooting and reassuring people in Providence that the city was safe, even while you had a mass shooter who was on the loose. Do you believe that’s fair criticism? How can you assure people the city’s safe, when, in fact, there’s a guy who shot 11 people who’s running around and hasn’t been caught?”
Smiley responded, “Yeah, that was the hardest question throughout this whole process. And it is a very difficult conversation for me to have with my neighbors, which is what this is really about. This is a tight-knit community. We all know each other, I think, because it’s come up a few times, I live in the neighborhood where the shooting occurred. And — but the fact of the matter is, is that this community is strong, it is resilient. And kids needed to go to school, people needed to go to work. We needed to find the strength to start to take steps forward. And so, we tried to support them through those early steps with a tremendous show of law enforcement. On every street corner, there was a police officer, and we got a lot of help from our neighbors here in Rhode Island, which we’re very grateful for. And the people of Providence really came together in a strong way. And so, I’m really proud of them and proud of this community.”…