Seattle residents interviewed by a Fox News producer this week blew a hole through the network’s narrative about crime in the Emerald City—leaving several co-hosts of The Five insisting that the locals were the ones “in denial” about the condition of their city.
Jesse Watters Primetime associate producer Johnny Belisario conducted a handful of man-on-the-street interviews—though judging by some of the co-hosts’ reactions, the footage he left with was less than ideal.
One man told Belisario that he has “never seen any crime in Seattle,” while another woman claimed she has “never heard of anyone getting robbed.”
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The latter interviewee also mocked Belisario to his face when the topic changed to public drug use, with Belisario claiming he “saw a lot of people shooting up on my way down here.”
“Oh, did you? Okay. And they were bothering you?” she asked.
After Belisario mentioned that he was in a car, the woman feigned concern: “Oh no! You were in a car! They were hurting you so bad! Oh no!”
Back in studio, the segment drew consternation, with Jeanine Pirro pointing to the closing of two Target stores in Seattle because of “theft and organized retail crime,” or so the company claimed in a press release.
“The arrogance and the ignorance of Seattle residents that Johnny interviewed is shocking. I mean, how could they be clueless?” PIrro asked Watters, who said they are “in denial.”
“And if you look at the demographics of the city, it’s understandable. It’s a very highly educated city—very white, very LGBTQ, very secular. And they all believe in the same thing, which is [that] criminalizing crime is racist,” said Watters, who previously said he supports “chivalrous men” out on the streets preventing crime.
According to data published by the Seattle Police Department, the number of violent crimes in 2022 amounted to a 15-year high, and the number of property crimes has risen each year from 2019 through 2022.
