Resolution Regarding Violence Against Law Enforcement Officers

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLINE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1227, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 1213), a resolution regarding violence against law enforcement officers, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to welcome so many fine men and women in blue here in our Nation's Capital for Police Week.

However, as always, I am concerned every day for the safety and well- being of these brave men and women in the communities across this great Nation where they live and work. Radical policies in States and cities across the country continue to promote a disastrous rise in crime and a dangerous environment for police officers.

Now more than ever, we must show our support for our law enforcement officers. As a former local prosecutor, I know just how important a robust police force is to keeping our community safe. For effective crime deterrence, you need prosecutors willing to pursue convictions and judges willing to sentence and incarcerate.

First and foremost, you need police willing to arrest and charge offenders for crimes committed. You need local and State governments willing to fund and support our police forces.

Let me be clear, this effort to defund the police has had a detrimental impact on efforts to combat crime but also on recruitment, retention, and morale among our law enforcement officers.

In Democrat-run cities across the country, areas where they defunded the police saw a spike in crime and continue to struggle today with keeping their cities safe. Despite Democrats' calls to defund the police and the emotional toll that that takes, we know that law enforcement officers answer every call for help regardless of who the person is or what they believe and regardless of the threat to their own lives. So many of those brave men and women who answer the call of duty put on the uniform and go to work in the morning but never return home in the evening.

Today, there are 23,785 names of law enforcement officers who have been killed in the line of duty that are inscribed on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial here in Washington, D.C. Words can never express our gratitude to each and every individual whose name is on that wall.

Unfortunately, we still see warning signs that the environment does not show any promise of becoming safer. According to the Fraternal Order of Police, 378 officers were shot in the line of duty in 2023, the highest number recorded since FOP began collecting the data.

So far in 2024, 136 officers have been shot. That must end. That is completely unacceptable.

We must take a stand against these attacks and honor our fallen law enforcement officers. This resolution does just that. This resolution condemns calls to defund the police. It also recognizes that law enforcement officers must have the training and resources necessary to protect the health and safety of the public as well as their fellow law enforcement officers on the job.

We must never forget those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. It is up to us in Congress to honor their memories and to stand up and protect those who do so much to protect us.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for his remarks, and I agree with him that we should stand in support of all of our law enforcement officers at the local, State, and Federal level. In addition to the work that we have done together on bills affecting law enforcement in the Judiciary Committee, I am also honored to serve on the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of Appropriations where we deal specifically with support for Federal law enforcement, as well as programs for State and local law enforcement. I can commit to the gentleman that the appropriations process under Chairman Cole's leadership will be focusing on providing that support for law enforcement across the country at all levels. I encourage him to keep a close watch on those bills as they move through, and hopefully we can get his support for those pieces of legislation that provide that funding.

We have the loss of officers in every community, and during National Police Week we pause to thank those brave men and women in blue, and in rural areas like mine wearing brown uniforms, as well as sheriff's deputies, and we remember those who were lost.

We have had loss in the Sixth Congressional District. In Bridgewater, recently we had officers who we lost, and it really does take a toll not just on the families of the victims but on the entire community.

We want to make sure that that number is reduced, eliminated, and we can do that not only through funding efforts to support our police but also through resolutions like this where we try and reverse the trend that we have seen across the country and in many Democrat-run cities, quite frankly, where the antagonistic attitude toward men and women in law enforcement has reached a fever pitch. We have to turn that around. We have to restore that respect for law enforcement in our communities, that confidence in law enforcement in our communities through efforts like this, but also through efforts on the ground.

Nothing can replace support for law enforcement among city councils, among elected officials at the local level, among teachers, among community members. That is what is going to be, ultimately, the driving force behind the reversal in this antipolice, defund-the-police-type attitude in our communities and the restoration of that respect and a reduction in crime that would follow. If you respect the police, hopefully it follows logically that you are not going to be someone who wants to cross the police by violating the laws.

We will continue to push legislation like this and legislation that we work on in a bipartisan manner. I am sorry the gentleman says he can't support this resolution, but I hope that we continue to work on these types of bills as we move forward.

As to the issue of gun violence, I would say that efforts to raise the age at which adults in this country can exercise their constitutional rights to defend their homes, defend their families, defend their communities are not the answer. We only need to look in the District of Columbia to see what has happened when the age at which juvenile crimes, the age for covering crimes and determining that they are juveniles, has been raised over the years and is now 25. If you are under 25 years old in the District of Columbia and you commit a crime, you can be considered a juvenile for purposes of sentencing and for purposes of punishment. That doesn't make sense.

We passed a bill this week that actually lowers that age from 24 down to 18 because, truly, if you commit a crime and you are a juvenile--and I worked in juvenile courts, so I understand that there needs to be different approaches to punishing juveniles. They need a much more restorative process that brings them back to a point at which they will be law-abiding adults. Once they are adults, once they are 18, treating them as juveniles without any kind of punishment for the crimes that are committed really does nothing but encourage that type of illegal behavior once they reach adulthood.

We don't think that raising age and pretending someone who is an adult is not an adult and can't exercise all of the rights enshrined to them under the Constitution is appropriate.
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Mr. CLINE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.
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Mr. CLINE. Mr. Speaker, we should all come together. We should all be standing united on this floor in support of law enforcement today. Unfortunately, it is the other side that is going to object to this legislation in support of police. To the defund the police movement, this rhetoric has come from Members in this Chamber on the other side and, yes, that has been followed up by action in cities across the country.

We just had a field hearing in Philadelphia where they defunded the police. They took money away from police departments in Philadelphia.

The gentleman may call the testimony of our colleague from Minnesota, former law enforcement, ranting, but, instead, I believe it was a passionate defense of each and every law enforcement officer in this country. We must stand and back the blue.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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