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Floor Speech
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Ms. SLOTKIN. Mr. President, first, along with Senator Gary Peters, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate observe a moment of silence in this Chamber to honor the four people and many more wounded yesterday in Grand Blanc Township.
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Ms. SLOTKIN. Mr. President, today, I rise on behalf of the community of Grand Blanc, a community in unspeakable pain, grief, and anger. I stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate as Michigan's junior Senator, along with our senior Senator Gary Peters, to represent and honor what has gone on in our community.
At 10:30 yesterday morning, a man drove a car into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township. The gunman set fire to the building and started shooting. At this time, four are deceased, more are injured and at the hospital. In this small community just 15 minutes from my own community, we are shocked to the core.
In addition to mourning the dead, we pray for the injured. We pray for the community that will be living with the effects of this for months and years to come, and we thank the professionals who are taking care of those in shock today.
Everywhere you go in Michigan, whether I was picking up a cup of coffee or picking up my dry cleaning, Michiganders are very raw.
I think the most important thing, first, is to thank our first responders but also use them as an example. The first officer was on the scene 30 seconds after the 9-1-1 call, and it took law enforcement 8 minutes to neutralize the shooter--8 minutes. They did a masterful job addressing an incredibly complex act of violence, and their efforts are what are keeping people afloat.
I want to give special recognition to two officers: one from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the other a Grand Blanc Township police officer who happened to be in the area close by and risked their lives to protect the innocent. They did not wait. They ran toward the danger without hesitation. They are heroes today.
I visited Grand Blanc Township this morning. We made a point to go with both Democratic- and Republican-elected leaders, local, State, and Federal. What I saw in the community is confusion and deep pain that something like this could happen in this small place. It is a community where fender benders are much more common than any kind of violent crime, and there is a feeling of pain that such a senseless and useless act of violence happened in our community.
I think it is important to learn that lesson from law enforcement. From everyone I talked to, whether it was local law enforcement, our State folks, our Federal folks, they all said: We just all joined in. We didn't think.
They put their heads down, and they started protecting people. That is the example I hope we can all learn as we try to understand this moment in our country's history.
We have a problem in this country. We have an epidemic in this country, and we have to acknowledge that. The only way we get better is by acknowledging we have a problem. We have a problem with mental health, and we have a problem where people think violence is a legitimate option in voicing disagreement in our system. Whether it was the death of Charlie Kirk, State legislators in Minnesota, people worshiping in Grand Blanc, those who attacked the President of the United States, it is normal to look for an ideology and a reason why they would perpetrate these kinds of attacks. But I think more than anything, what I ask Michiganders and ask Americans to do is look not for the specific reason why but understand that what is happening in our country, we are signaling that we are unwell. We are unwell. Whether it is in Nevada or Michigan, people are unwell, and we have to understand that it is our responsibility to address that.
In Michigan, we, unfortunately, have had five mass shootings in the past 4 years. Oxford High School, Michigan State University, the Splash Pad in Rochester Hills, another church in Wayne, MI, and now Grand Blanc Township is added to this sick fraternity of communities that have to endure this kind of violence.
I would dare say that myself, this is the fourth time I have personally dealt with one of these mass shootings. I can see that it desensitizes you after all these times. You get used to it in a way that I just can't reconcile.
It was important for us to come together--Democrats and Republicans-- to put out the message that, please, take a breath. Don't watch everything social media is putting forward. Learn from our law enforcement officials to be serious and judicious, and let us all be leaders in our own lives. Either you are working every day in your community to make things better or you are working to split people apart.
This targeted violence was meant to terrorize us. It is meant to make us scared in our houses of worship, where people were just trying to pray on a Sunday morning. It is meant to terrorize us in our high schools, in our colleges, in our places of political discourse, on our university campuses. But what it does by making us afraid is, it is infringing on our freedom. If people don't feel that they can go to their sanctuaries--the place where they and their children are supposed to be safe--that is infringing on our freedom.
I would say we must acknowledge as Americans that we have an illness, and the symptom is this extreme violence that is being perpetrated on our most innocent civilians.
I hope today, after a long month of violence across the country, that Democrats and Republicans, especially in this body, can rise above the petty political games and come together to get to work on this epidemic. It is our responsibility as leaders. It is our responsibility as the people look to us to lead.
I just encourage every American to rise above the anger and vitriol of this moment and instead focus on our communities and what we need to come together and heal.
With that, I yield to my senior Senator Gary Peters.
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