A top-ranking member of the Democratic Socialists of America confirmed on live television that her party wants to abolish police and prisons, then refused to explain what would happen to rapists under that system.
Dr. Frances Gill, a delegate on the DSA's National Political Committee, sat for an interview with NBC Los Angeles anchor Conan Nolan that has since gone viral for all the wrong reasons. Nolan asked a simple, concrete question: without police or prisons, who catches a rapist and holds him accountable? Gill would not give a straight answer.
Instead, she pivoted to streetlights.
The exchange matters because it landed in the middle of the Los Angeles mayoral race, where DSA member Nithya Raman, the first DSA member ever elected to the L.A. City Council, is preparing to face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in the fall general election. Raman won a runoff primary in June, and the DSA's local chapter is weighing whether to formally endorse her. The clip gave Raman's rivals fresh ammunition and forced a public reckoning with what the DSA actually believes.
The DSA's national platform is not ambiguous. The party calls on members to "defund the police by rejecting any expansion to police budgets or scope of enforcement while cutting budgets annually towards zero." It advocates freeing all incarcerated people, demilitarizing police, and investing in what it calls "community self-governance."
Gill confirmed those goals on air. Fox News reported that she told Nolan the DSA envisions "a horizon where folks are not reliant on armed enforcement to meet our public safety needs."
Nolan then pressed her with the question any voter would ask:
"So if my daughter is assaulted and raped, is there any agency that would seek to find her assailant and bring him to justice?"
Gill said "of course" a rapist would be held accountable, but she never explained how. She offered no mechanism, no alternative institution, no framework. Instead, she steered the conversation toward city infrastructure and root causes of crime.
"We're spending absolutely outrageous amounts of money on police and policing, and we're not spending money on things that actually make people safe and feel safe. Which is things like actually well-lit streets. The street lights in Los Angeles. Everybody agrees it's a huge problem."
The streetlight reference was not random. Tens of thousands of streetlights across Los Angeles are reportedly without power due to widespread copper wire theft. But Gill's pivot from a question about violent sexual assault to a complaint about lighting struck many viewers as evasive at best.
As the Daily Mail reported, Gill also told Nolan she wanted to "avoid getting caught in hypotheticals and talk more about the reality." The problem, of course, is that rape is not a hypothetical. It is a reality that police departments investigate and prosecutors bring to trial every day, the very system the DSA wants to dismantle.
The interview did not stop at policing. Breitbart reported that DSA co-chair Megan Romer separately confirmed on Fox News Sunday that the organization backs abolishing prisons, ICE, and national borders as a long-term plan. Gill herself became defensive when Nolan pressed her on abolishing ICE and border security, questioning the anchor's "good faith" rather than defending the position on its merits.
That pattern, announce a radical position, then dodge or deflect when asked to defend it, has become a recurring problem for the progressive left. It is the same dynamic that played out when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to dismiss her own "defund the police" rhetoric as a relic of the COVID era, hoping voters would forget she championed the slogan when it was politically useful.
Gill's refusal to engage with basic questions about public safety consequences is not an isolated stumble. It reflects a structural weakness in the DSA's platform: the organization has detailed what it wants to tear down but offers no credible plan for what replaces it. When pressed, its leaders retreat into abstractions about "root causes" and "community self-governance", phrases that mean nothing to a parent whose child has been assaulted.
The viral clip created an immediate political problem for Nithya Raman. Spencer Pratt, a former mayoral candidate, seized on the interview and posted on X:
"Nithya Raman's partner at DSA LA says their goal is to completely abolish police & prisons. When asked what happens if a girl gets raped? Her answer? 'I want to talk about street lights.'"
Pratt's characterization of Gill as Raman's "partner at DSA LA" frames the two as politically joined. The DSA's Los Angeles chapter has not yet formally endorsed Raman for the general election, though Gill said during the interview that "there are a lot of members who are excited about Nithya" and that an endorsement was "still possible."
When Nolan asked Gill directly whether she personally supported Raman, Gill would not say. "I'm going to defer to our organizational process," she replied. The non-answer was telling, either Gill did not want to tie Raman publicly to the DSA's abolition platform, or the organization's internal politics are more complicated than its public posture suggests.
Raman herself has tried to create distance from the DSA's most radical positions. She previously campaigned on defunding the police but walked that stance back. In February, she told NBC Los Angeles that if elected mayor, she would maintain the LAPD's size. She is now running on a three-point public safety plan: integrating unarmed officers into 911 calls, restoring accountability, and investing in prevention.
But the DSA's platform has not changed. The organization still calls for cutting police budgets "annually towards zero" and freeing all incarcerated people. Raman can distance herself from those positions all she wants, but as long as she carries the DSA label and the DSA's own leaders confirm the platform on live television, voters will draw the connection. Democratic veterans have already warned that the socialist surge within the party risks handing elections to Republicans.
The core failure on display in Gill's interview is not rhetorical. It is substantive. The DSA wants to eliminate the institutions that investigate violent crime, prosecute offenders, and incarcerate dangerous people. When asked what replaces those institutions, the organization's own leaders cannot answer.
Gill's response, better street lighting, substance abuse treatment, addressing root causes, may sound reasonable as supplementary policy. Nobody opposes fixing streetlights. But none of those measures answer the question Nolan asked: who catches the rapist? Who arrests him? Where does he go?
The DSA's platform does not say, because it cannot say. Abolishing police and prisons without a credible alternative for violent crime is not a policy position. It is a slogan, one that falls apart the moment someone asks a direct question on camera.
Progressive leaders across the country have spent years learning this lesson. Even Ocasio-Cortez has called the first wave of progressive politics "crazy," distancing herself from the very movement she helped build. The DSA's own rising candidates, like Raman, quietly walk back the platform while still accepting the organization's support and infrastructure.
The Daily Mail reported that it reached out to both the DSA and Raman's campaign for comment. Whether either responded was not disclosed.
Meanwhile, the DSA continues to rally behind national figures and build political power in major cities. Its platform remains unchanged. Its leaders still confirm, on camera, that they want to abolish police and prisons. And when asked the obvious follow-up, what happens to violent criminals?, they still have no answer.
Voters in Los Angeles, and everywhere else the DSA plants its flag, deserve better than a pivot to streetlights when the question is about justice.