Biden Nominees Play Into National War on Cops
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding law enforcement:
“The week before last, it was my honor to sit down with a number of law enforcement officials in my hometown of Louisville. But I wish we could have met under happier circumstances.
“Our city is contending with a tragic and record-setting jump in crime. Last year, Louisville saw 188 homicides, the most in any year on record. In the last two years, carjackings have tripled. And deadly drugs are becoming so prevalent on our streets, Jefferson County saw 500 overdose deaths in 2021.
“Unfortunately, the historic wave of crime that has swept Louisville is challenging communities all across America. The murder rates of at least a dozen other major cities set all-time records last year. Chicago saw its most carjackings in 20 years. And in the first quarter of 2022, New York’s crime rate is already up 44%.
“Needless to say, this is a time for strong law enforcement. Studies show that fewer police and less-active policing makes crime worse and leaves the most vulnerable communities particularly worse off.
“But our nation’s police officers aren’t just facing higher volumes of crime. They’re facing more direct personal risks to confront it. Last year, as overall homicide counts continued to climb past 2020’s record total, killings of police officers saw a staggering 59% spike of their own.
“73 men and women, sworn to protect and serve their communities, were killed in 2021 while trying to do exactly that. And already, 2022 has seen more than 100 more officers shot in the line of duty.
“The surge in anti-police violence that boiled over in the summer of 2020 has taken its toll on the men and women of law enforcement.
“An exhaustive report compiled by the City of Louisville last year found that morale among our officers is alarmingly low. A full seventy-five percent would leave for another police department.
“Not surprisingly, this has led to a severe staffing shortage on the force. Our police chief even took out billboard ads in Atlanta to try and recruit officers from other cities.
“Now more than ever, we need to fund law enforcement, support police officers, and back the blue.
“But too many Democrats are apparently bent on doing just the opposite. The far left’s call to defund the police has taken root at every level of government. Elected officials, sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, have chosen instead to amplify distrust of the men and women who work every day to enforce our laws.
“Just consider who the Biden Administration has prioritized for confirmation to top jobs in the Justice Department. There’s the new U.S. Attorney with a reputation for pushing to cancel entire categories of the criminal code, and the Assistant Attorneys General who have advocated for efforts to ‘decrease police budgets’ and ‘invest less in police.’
“There’s the newly-minted Supreme Court Justice who advocated in her last job that the COVID pandemic was an appropriate reason to let inmates out of jail here in Washington.
“And just last week, our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee considered a nominee to the circuit court with an unapologetic record of hostility toward law enforcement. Without any basis in fact, Nusrat Choudhury suggested that police murdering unarmed black men, ‘happens every day.’
“When our colleague, the junior Senator from Louisiana, called her out on it, the nominee tried to claim that she had only made that statement as an act of ‘rhetorical advocacy’ on behalf of a client.
“Unsurprisingly, that answer hasn’t done much to ease the concerns of America’s law enforcement community. Major organizations representing officers – from the Sergeants Benevolent Association to the National Sheriffs Association to the Fraternal Order of Police – have voiced strong opposition and called on President Biden to, ‘take a stand against this dangerous and absurdly divisive rhetoric.’
“Needless to say, the President and his Administration need to do a lot more than that to prove to the men and women of law enforcement that they have their backs.”
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Related Issues: Law Enforcement, Crime, Senate Democrats, COVID-19
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