Bethany Hallam, a Democrat, is a Councilman-At-Large in Allegheny County, meaning she represents the entire county, unlike her fellow councilmen who are elected from certain neighborhoods.
Hallam, who maintains an active personal presence on social media site X.com, regularly engaging with users, posted on Saturday evening, while details were still coming in about the exact nature of the attack, with the comment, “Wow, the crime in Butler County is out of control!” Butler County, where Presidential candidate Donald Trump was shot in the ear on Saturday evening, borders Allegheny County to the northwest.
Without any further comment, I’ll just leave a now-deleted tweet from Allegheny County Councilperson Bethany Hallam here for you to decide if it is acceptable from an elected official. pic.twitter.com/lxGirdTM6d
— Colin Dunlap (@colin_dunlap) July 13, 2024
In response, Republican Councilman Sam DeMarco called for Hallam’s resignation saying, “[Her] wildly inappropriate and incendiary post mocking the attempted assassination of a former president and the death of a rally attendee and grave injury to two others, leaves us with no other conclusion. She has to go.”
According to CrimeGrade.org, Butler County receives an A-minus score for safety, a good endorsement of the safety in the area. For comparison on CrimeGrade.org, while Pennsylvania overall received an “A”, the city of Pittsburgh received an “F” and Allegheny County overall also received an “F”, placing only in the 3rd percentile for safety, meaning 97% of counties in the United States are safer.
Crime and punishment are a major theme of Hallam’s in her role as a Councilman. As a former prisoner in the Allegheny County Jail, she often advocates for better treatment of the criminals there. However, she rejects calls for “tough on crime” policies that would increase the number of inmates in jail, implying that imprisoning more criminals would not solve the Pittsburgh area’s problems with crime.
On Sunday, the FBI confirmed that the man who shot former President Trump was from Allegheny County.
Hallam later deleted her social media post, claiming, “I didn’t know shit about what happened and shouldn’t say anything unless I do”
