Expressing Support for Local Law Enforcement Officers and Condemning Efforts to Defund or Dismantle Local Law Enforcement Agencies

Floor Speech

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Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about what this resolution is really about. No, it is not just about supporting local law enforcement. It is also about trying to attack and vilify the Black Lives Matter movement and the activism that has helped shape our Nation and helped our Nation more clearly see the injustices carried out in our communities.

In 2020, I myself was on the forefront of this movement. Alongside the world, I watched online, outraged over the killing and lynching of George Floyd, a man who did not deserve to die at the hands of a police choke hold while he called out for his mother.

Alongside the world, I was outraged over the loss of Breonna Taylor, a young woman who did not deserve to be shot dead in her own home.

Like millions across this country, I marched for change, marched to fight for our voices to be heard, marched to fight for a world where that injustice does not exist, and marched in a nonviolent way alongside my community in central Florida.

I saw the pain and the hurt of so many who had spent their lives living in a nation where they feared their well-being every time they stepped outside of their home due to negative interactions with law enforcement. Not every interaction, but many interactions.

We fought for public safety that centers the community so we can truly tackle crime and conditions that breed it.

I believed then what I believe now: The color of your skin and how much money you have in the bank should not determine the treatment you get in the eyes of the law.

The color of your skin and how much money you have in the bank should not be the determining factor of whether you live or die.

No one deserves to die because they are Black. No one deserves to die because they are poor.

Yet, today, we are voting on a resolution that does nothing but to divide us as a country.

It has nothing to do with really supporting police. It has everything to do with vilifying a movement of people and everything to do with trying to rewrite history to make what was a global, mainly nonviolent protest seem evil.

You can pass all the sham resolutions you want, but you cannot take away our stories. I remember being tear-gassed, maced, arrested, and jailed on the streets of my own hometown. Today, I get to represent those same streets in the United States Congress.

You cannot whitewash this history. These stories live on in Black Lives Matter.

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