Reauthorizing Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2379, a bill to reauthorize the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program, and I would also like to thank Mr. Pascrell for his work on this. This is something that we have seen over many years, and I appreciate the chairman and my friend from Georgia on the committee for bringing this forward as well.

The Bulletproof Vest Partnership, or the BVP, created by the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 1998, is a unique U.S. Department of Justice initiative designed to provide a critical resource to State and local law enforcement. The goal of the BVP is to support the purchase of body armor that has been tested and found to comply with applicable ballistic and stab standards promulgated by the National Institute of Justice.

For the past 20 years, the BVP has awarded more than 13,000 jurisdictions a total of $467 million in Federal funds for the purchase of over 1.3 million vests.

From fiscal year 2015 through 2017, protective vests were directly attributable to saving the lives of at least 129 law enforcement and corrections officers. BVP funds helped purchase 21 of those vests.

In short, body armor saves lives. For 30 years, bullet-resistant body armor has protected law enforcement officers from ballistic and nonballistic incidents. As recorded by the IACP/DuPont Kevlar Survivors' Club, more than 3,100 officers have survived potentially fatal or disabling injuries because they were wearing their body armor.

The bill before us today permanently reauthorizes this vitally important program. It will ensure our local heroes are protected from those who try to do them harm.

When a law enforcement officer leaves home in the morning, there is no guarantee he or she will return home safely that evening. This program makes it more likely, though, that these heroes will see their families again.

That is why I am an original cosponsor of H.R. 2379. As the son of a Georgia State trooper, I know what that means.

I do appreciate this time. This is a special week for me personally because it is recognizing something that I grew up with. It recognizes something that I am that I can't get a part of who I am. And I appreciate Mr. Pascrell, my friend from New Jersey, talking about this and what that actually means.

But for what I will just term as a trooper's kid, this week means a lot. And it would mean even more when we come here if really, we had had more to do this week. I say that with respect, and I say that with love, because this is a good bill, and I urge everyone to support it, and I want to.

But just this past week, in Georgia, just as was recommended and said in New Jersey, just in the past few days in Savannah, Georgia, we lost another officer, Sergeant Kelvin Ansari, in an incident. He went to work and did not come home.

For the past few years, I have been in this body, and we have worked during Police Week, even beforehand, to bring up bills and to bring up issues that involve our law enforcement community because I recognize, and I know others in this body do as well, that on those mornings when they get up to go to work, the ladies and gentlemen who serve us in our law enforcement community, all of us, they are giving a gift of life to go serve others.

And on many days, unfortunately, the headlines will show to us that they don't return home; some through violence; some through activity; some, as we have seen this past year in this country, ambushed in front of their own police departments; cruelly murdered by those anarchists in this country who believe that the police are the enemy; and sometimes, fed by others who want a different version of what upholding the law means. And that is sad.

My heart breaks, because when those officers don't come home, there is a space left at the table. There is a void left in the hearts of families and communities.

One of my earliest remembrances of my dad as a trooper, and one of the biggest things that made an impression on me, was years ago there was a trooper who had made a stop on 129 South out of Gainesville, Georgia, T.C. Dillard. As he made that stop, a young man who was not in his right mind through drugs, came over a hill and hit him.

I remember hearing about it. I was young at the time, and I remember him being taken to the hospital. And I can remember my dad and other officers all going to the hospital, and they were giving blood and doing whatever they could. It was one of the first times I remember of my earliest remembrances of watching my dad cry.

To a scrawny kid from north Georgia, who had a dad, and has a dad who is 6 feet 2 inches, 250 pounds, carried a .357 on his hip, and wore the badge of the Georgia State Patrol, he was and is my hero. To see him cry was something I had not experienced. To watch him love another officer and do anything for that officer is something that has impacted me today.

As we move forward, and we look at the things today, I guess my only thing--and I wanted to spend just a few more moments on this, because this is our only chance. This is the only bill that we have dealing with Law Enforcement Week this week.

I know that we are busy in the Judiciary Committee. I know that we have got a lot of other things going on. I know that we have so many things that we need to investigate, and I get that.

I am not--for once, I am just honestly speaking as much as a Congressman as I am as a trooper's kid.

Thirty thousand officers will be coming to Washington, D.C. over the next few days to honor those who have fallen, and to remember this week. And this bill, which is a good bill, is it. It is all we are offering. It is all we are discussing.

In years past, in 2018, we had six bills, including one rule bill. In 2017, nine bills, including two rule bills. 2016, eight bills, including two rule bills. Protect and Serve, Thin Blue Line, Probation Officer Protection Act of 2017, the Comprehensive Opioid and Abuse Act, which gave our officers training in how they can actually help in an opioid crisis.

I understand that we have a lot going on, but in our committee right now we have H.R. 816, which would ensure certain law enforcement officers on college campuses and their families are eligible for death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers Benefit Program.

H.R. 816 is named in honor of Sean Collier, a police officer at MIT who was murdered by one of the Tsarnaev brothers after the attack at the Boston Marathon. This is to make sure their family has security.

Another bill from my committee colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler), is his aim to prevent law enforcement suicides. Other bills that we have pending for law enforcement by helping them provide resources to combat opioid crisis or curb sex trafficking. In years past, we have considered numerous bills, not all of them, in fact, most of them noncontroversial. But we didn't seem to have time to mark them up this year or to bring them forward.

I understand, and I am trying my best to just bring an honest concern, because when you look at these officers--and I used to ride with them; as I got older and I went to seminary and I was a chaplain for the Gainesville Police Department--it never leaves you.

As I came here today, and I appreciate my friend from Georgia, we have shared so many things together, we have done this, and Mr. Pascrell and others who have talked about this.

But this is it. This is our only chance to actually say to these people--instead of just saying we appreciate you; we love you; and we are glad that you do what you do and offer them help in the things that they do, we offer them bulletproof vests, which is good; but it is all we are offering right now.

And I want to make sure, on this floor, for those kids whose dads and moms didn't come home this past year, just a reminder that it is not about what we say to those officers, it is also what we do.

I live each day, as best as I possibly can, to do as best as I possibly can for the ones who have given me so much; my mom, who I lost last June, my dad, who I still have, who taught me how to grow up; how to love; how to care; taught me to serve my country in the military and to serve my country here.

But when I come to a discussion today, and I heard my friend from New Jersey so eloquently discuss those who lost their lives in New Jersey and here in Savannah, the one thing that gets me up every morning, and if I have had a bad day, or if I am thinking about it, and when I hear all the discussion in this country about officers who are bad, or officers who are not doing it right, and officers--I understand the discussion that we need to have in our communities, and how we need to come together as communities to help each other and to lift each other up, from the poorest communities to the richest; the police are there to take the law. And if there are bad ones, they need to be got out. But they are 99.99 percent good, who honestly just want to do a good job, and we need to honor that.

But when we talk about bulletproof vests, when we talk about other issues of how we care for officers, just remember those this week, especially those who didn't come home because, Mr. Speaker, except by the grace of God, I would have not known my father, because on a traffic stop, when I was still a small child, he walked up to a car. He caught a glint of a gun laying on the shoulder of the driver. He, fortunately, was able to pull his gun, and they stood there for many minutes in a standoff until the gentleman threw the gun out of the car window. That incident almost deprived me of knowing my hero.

When we talk about police, when we talk about law enforcement and the other first responders on all sides, but the police we are talking about today, I just humbly believe that there is more that we can do, and I look forward to working with our committee to do more throughout this year.

But on this week, it is worth pointing out that these folks stand in the line, many of them not sleeping while we sleep, and they are worth protecting, and they are worth more, frankly, than this one bill; and I look forward to working with my Democratic colleagues to make sure that we see more come across this floor.

I am almost at the end, but as I was finishing up--and I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia's words, and I agree that we can--but I would be remiss if I didn't share what I just got in my inbox. I just got this in my inbox.

It is a letter signed by my chairman of my committee and four other members of our committee on Police Week. After I just talked about how we can do more, this is what we are doing more.

``As you know, the House Judiciary Committee exercises legislative and oversight jurisdiction in the areas of civil rights and criminal law enforcement. These areas continue to be subjects of intense national concern in the wake of high-profile incidents involving the fatal use of force by law enforcement against unarmed people in cities such as Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Falcon Heights, Tulsa, Pittsburgh, and Dallas. In 2018, 992 people were shot and killed by police. In the first 2 months of this year, at least 265 people have suffered the same fate.''

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Are you kidding me? We couldn't wait a week?

Look, vote for this bill. This bill is a good bill. But this shows the dedication of the majority to Police Week right here. It is about what my chairman of the committee did. It is about what we say and what we do. This is what we did.

On the first part of Police Week, we sent to the Attorney General a discussion about people who are shot by police, many of which in no context here of how the accidents occurred or how it occurred or what was actually happening; it is just that we need to go investigate, a 4- , 5-page letter.

Vote for the bill. The bill is a good bill.

This letter is embarrassing.

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Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am ready to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Again, I will come back to the issue. This bulletproof vest bill is a great bill. It needs to be permanent. In fact, if we can do better, it would be great. We need to do more.

I made my point about this letter, and, unfortunately, this is a stain on Police Week, and hopefully we can do better, and I know we will.

I trust my friend from Georgia. I trust my friend from New Jersey. We can do this, and we can do this better. I am sorry that this is the way it has had to start, but actions do speak louder than anything else, than words, like I said, and this is an action on Police Week that, frankly, is unbelievable.

Support this underlying bill. Support this bill for bulletproof vests. Support our officers not just with words, but with actions as well, and I know the Members here on this floor are doing that. It is just a shame that this had to come out with that.

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