The horrific ambush shooting Saturday night that seriously wounded two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies sickens me. I am angry and sad at the same time.
I am sad because I have attended funerals for many law enforcement officers throughout my career. I know what it is like to try to console a grieving child or spouse whose loved one died serving our nation and protecting his or her community as a law enforcement officer.
Some died while doing what I asked them to do when I was the executive assistant director or the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That is something I will live with all my life.
Law enforcement officers are America’s heroes, along with other first responders and members of our military. They are the finest 1% this country has. If you don’t believe that, then you don’t know what they do for this nation and your community every day.
Law enforcement officers protect and serve people they don’t know and may never meet — including people who despise them. If there was a day with no cops, everyone would realize what they do.
It angers me that many want to attack all cops because of the bad actions of a tiny minority.
That is the wrong message to be sending to the communities that need protection and it’s a bad message to those that leave the safety and security of their homes every day to protect others.
It’s an insult to the families of over 22,000 police officers whose names are inscribed on the National Law Enforcement Memorial in our nation’s capital. All of them died in the line of duty to protect the rest of us.
The dead include officers who ran into the World Trade Center in New York City when two planes struck the twin towers in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Heroic officers and firefighters didn’t think about the race, ethnicity, or religion of those inside. They tried to save all lives — and many died as a result.
The National Football League has all sort of demonstrations before games that focus on racism and those who have died at the hands of law enforcement. But I didn’t see a single team honor the fallen firefighters, police officers and victims of 9/11 on the anniversary of those attacks last Friday.
These millionaire players think they are some kind of heroes — but the real heroes were ignored by those claiming to be.
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I respect our police, and I believe police officers are generally decent and honorable men and women who are doing a difficult, dangerous and often thankless job. They risk their lives every time they go to work and they bear the added burden of listening to insults shouted at them by ungrateful people and those who think they are entitled or who will say they are “offended.”
The truth is that today there are those who live to be offended. They call themselves progressives. They will always be offended until we give them what they think they are entitled to, such as free college, free housing and no police. They also want no bail, no courts and no system of consequence for bad behavior.
Police today have become the bad guys — and the bad guys have become the victims. The police receive little or no respect or support from the mob of incompetent Democratic mayors and governors around the country. We must realize that these officers are all that stand between us and total anarchy.
The attacks on police must end. This country must stand up and be loud. Those who believe in a nation of law and order can be silent no more. You need to contact your local and national leaders every day. We need to demand that they support their law enforcement and allow police to do their job.
We must demand that police departments have the manpower and equipment they need to keep our neighborhoods safe. We need to hold prosecutors accountable and demand they do their jobs and prosecute offenders, unlike the prosecutors in Portland, Ore., and New York City.
We must demand that our state legislatures abolish bail reform laws that result in the immediate release of most offenders.
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As I said when I recently testified before Congress, “you work for me!” We are taxpayers and these politicians are accountable to us. Not the other way around.
The politicians are accountable to us for the violence in their cities and their failure to act and allow the police to do the job they are trained for. They are accountable for the failure to accept help from President Trump.
Some of these politicians are defunding the police and putting their communities at greater risk of crime by removing security, but at the same time spend taxpayer money on their own security. If they want to defund the police or take money away from them, they should lead by example and defund their own protection first.
Hold them accountable. And finally, vote in the upcoming elections. Not just the presidential election but for races for state and local elected offices as well.
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Take our country back step by step. Don’t just watch TV and remain angry. Take action and live in the country that you want.
We have a free country and you can decide on how it is run. In fact, our country is so free that people like democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan can badmouth it every day and get away with it. Time for us to be just as loud.