Recognizing Law Enforcement Officers Across the Country
Floor Speech
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Mr. TIFFANY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding some time to me here this afternoon.
First, we are setting up a picture here on the easel to the right of me. And what you see there are not the wildfires in California. What you see is a picture from my district in western Wisconsin of Minneapolis at the end of May as the city was burning.
Organized anarchist groups like Antifa have been engaging in systematic criminal activity including assaults, widespread property damage and destruction, repeated looting, and attacks on law enforcement and others.
They have turned parts of Kenosha, Madison, and Milwaukee in my State, as well as neighborhoods just over the border in Minnesota, into post-apocalyptic hellscapes.
And if I can take just a minute. Growing up in western Wisconsin, I will never forget, it was always a treat to go into the Twin Cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. And in the Midwest, Minneapolis and Saint Paul were always known as the best of the big cities to live in. They can no longer say that after what has happened here in 2020.
These are not mostly peaceful protests, and Antifa is not a myth. These are orchestrated assaults on civil society and the American way of life designed to spread terror and chaos, to destroy businesses, and to shake the very foundations of our country.
First, it was Minneapolis and Atlanta, then Portland and Seattle, then Milwaukee, Madison and even Kenosha. Tomorrow it could be your community.
So let's talk about those cities here in Wisconsin.
Madison: In June, a violent mob vandalized the State capitol and other State buildings, shattering windows, hurling Molotov cocktails and destroying historic monuments. In fact, it was very fortunate that the Molotov cocktail that went into the county building just off from the State capitol did not lead to a loss of life.
They attacked a statue of Hans Christian Heg, a statue that I was just walking past a few months ago as a State legislator in Wisconsin. He was a Civil War veteran, immigrant, abolitionist who fell at Chickamauga fighting to end slavery and preserve the Union. Yes, they tore it down. His nearly 100-year-old sculpture was decapitated and thrown into a lake by rioters.
The mob also tore down the statue of Lady Forward, a monument that is emblematic of Wisconsin being the first State to ratify the women's suffrage movement. The original Lady Forward statue was first placed in front of the Wisconsin State Capitol in 1895.
And for my friends on the other side of the aisle, whether you are a Republican or Democrat, if you don't think they are going to come for you at some point, go ask my former colleague Democrat State Senator Tim Carpenter, who was beaten by rioters during that unrest and needed surgery to recover. He told the media, ``I don't know what happened . . . all I did was stop and take a picture . . . and the next thing I'm getting five-six punches, getting kicked in the head.'' That is a Democratic State senator.
Roving bands of thugs looking to intimidate residents torched and looted State Street. The State Street riots proceeded when they tore down the statues around the beautiful State capitol in Madison, Wisconsin.
But let's talk about Bernell Trammell. In July, Mr. Trammell, an activist known for carrying handmade signs supporting President Trump, was gunned down in broad daylight in Milwaukee. To date, no arrests have been made.
Mr. Trammell is an African American. And, in fact, I am quite sure he supported an African American former state senator that I used to work with.
There is growing public concern that the violence and lawlessness that has plagued Milwaukee for months has rendered local officials either unwilling or unable to thoroughly investigate his murder and bring those responsible for his death to justice. And that includes the top law enforcement official in Wisconsin. We are hearing nothing from him in regard to Bernell Trammell.
The failure of local officials to apprehend any suspects a month after this brutal crime was committed sets a dangerous precedent, one that could encourage more politically motivated killings and undermine the civil rights protections afforded to all Americans.
I have asked Attorney General Barr and the U.S. Attorney to initiate a civil rights investigation into his killing as they did into the shooting of Jacob Blake.
Kenosha: During the Kenosha riots, at least 56 businesses were severely damaged or destroyed racking up a $50 million price tag. Thank you, President Trump, for coming to Kenosha and offering your assistance.
The destruction has left business owners devastated and wondering whether they will have the money to rebuild and stay in the neighborhood.
The Uptown neighborhood, home to a majority of minority-owned businesses, was among those hardest hit. One news report described the plight of one local business owner:
Inside La Estrella Supermarket, owner Abel Alejo surveyed the water and smoke damage his shop suffered. Carpeting in a hallway was spongy with water as he surveyed packages of spoiling food that needed clearing out last week. A few pinatas still hung overhead from an intact part of the otherwise broken ceiling in the closed store.
Wauwatosa: According to police, a mob targeted the home of a Wauwatosa policeman, vandalizing his home, physically assaulting him, then firing a shotgun through his back door.
A Democrat state representative participated in the unrest and actually accused the officer, who lives in the home with his girlfriend and two children, of aggressively provoking the confrontation by ``choosing to come out of his home.''
So I think about my district. I was talking to the mayor a short week after I was sworn in on May 19, when the riots were happening in Minneapolis, and he was wondering, along with lots of other citizens in St. Croix and Polk Counties on the western edge of Wisconsin, are the riots of Minneapolis going to come to our community? We can only hope that that does not happen here as we close out 2020.
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