Ilhan Omar can't explain how to protect constituents when police are gone

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) could not answer CNN anchor Jake Tapper's question about who will protect the citizens of Minneapolis if the local police force is disbanded.

What are the details?

During Sunday's "State of the Union," Tapper asked Omar about her insistence that police should be defunded and an alternative law enforcement should be put into place.

Omar, who represents a portion of Minneapolis, could not tell Tapper what would happen once the police are disbanded.

Last week, the Minneapolis City Council passed a resolution to replace the local police force with a "community safety" model.

"You have talked about dismantling — the need to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department," Tapper began. "What takes its place, and if you could just decree what takes its place? Who investigates crimes? Who arrests criminals? What happens?"

Omar responded with a bit of background information, rehashing the city council's resolution.

"So, Minneapolis unanimously just voted on a resolution that will engage the community on a one-year process of what happens as we go through the process of dismantling the department and starting anew," she began. "A new way forward can't be put in place if we have a department that is having a crisis of credibility, if we have a department that's led by a chief who's suited for racism, if we have a department that hasn't solved homicide."

She added, "Half of the homicides in the Minneapolis Police Department go unsolved."

The lawmaker continued, pointing out the fallibility of the police department, rather than answering Tapper's simple question.

"There have been cases where they have destroyed rape kits," Omar insisted. "And so you can't really reform a department that is rotten to the root. What you can do is rebuild. And so this is our opportunity, you know, as a city to come together, have the conversation of what public safety looks like, who enforces the most dangerous crimes that take place in our community."

Tapper, clearly through with Omar's history lesson, responded, "You're — just to be clear, though, you're not saying that there's nothing that takes its place. You're not saying that if a woman is raped ..."

Omar interrupted, insisting that the greater conversation is "going wrong."

"I think that's really where the conversation is going wrong, because no one is saying that the community is not going to be kept safe," she said. "No one is saying crimes will not be investigated. No one is saying that we are not going to have proper response when community members are in danger."

She insisted, "We can't go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place."

Not once during the interview did Omar actually answer Tapper's original question of what will take the place of traditional law enforcement, who will be responsible for investigating crimes or even arresting criminals.

You can listen to the exchange in the video below.