Recognizing Law Enforcement Officers Across the Country

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I am still sickened by the sight that I saw, that all of us saw: two officers who showed up to work, an assassination attempt, attempted execution, just for sitting in their car, for honoring their pledge to preserve and protect the safety of the citizens they serve.

For the past month, law enforcement officers have endured attacks, have been shot at, bottles thrown at, fireworks, glass bottles, powerful lasers attempted to blind them.

This year, as my friend from Texas said, 43 law enforcement officers have been killed, nearly twice the rate of last year.

And what is coming from the other side of the Chamber here? You got it. Silence.

When elected leaders refuse to stand with our law enforcement officers and continue to bend to the whims of violent mobs, we lose our civilization. We lose our civil society.

Now, you think, when you watch TV maybe you see it on the news, it is happening far away, thousands of miles away across our country. But right in Pennsylvania where I live, south central Pennsylvania, just on Monday, unfortunately, violent riots came to the streets on the heels of the death of Ricardo Munoz, a mentally ill 27-year-old who was captured on a police officer's body camera charging at the officer with a knife in his hand.

Now, the death of Ricardo Munoz is a tragedy, no doubt, and my prayers are with Mr. Munoz's family. However, an adult man wielding a large carving knife over his head while charging at police--by the way, having a record of doing this in the past, stabbing people--is a clear mortal threat, and the officers are well within their rights to protect themselves.

Let me be very clear. Every person in the United States of America has the right to peacefully protest. Your constitutional right to protest, however, does not include violent riots, setting fires to things, looting, and harming and killing other people.

Now, this is an account from that protest which wasn't a protest:

The mob marched from the scene of the shooting on Laurel Street to the police station, chucking glass bottles, rocks, bricks, gallon jugs filled with liquid, and plastic road barricades at the police. A county vehicle parked in front of the station was damaged.

Numerous buildings and vehicles were damaged, fires were set--all without regard for the owners and individuals who could have been physically harmed by the riotous actions.

Mr. Speaker, anyone in this Chamber, any leader in our community who does not stand up for civil society, for our police officers who take an oath to protect their citizens, is supporting a dangerous and deadly violent mob, and it absolutely must end.

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