Biden Mourns Fallen Police at Memorial: ‘We Owe You as a Nation’
President Joe Biden addressed law enforcement officials on Wednesday gathered in Washington to honor slain colleagues as he tries to stop his Republican rival former President Donald Trump from capturing high-profile endorsements from their unions within the coming weeks.
President Biden’s speech, on the annual Nationwide Peace Officers’ Memorial Service on the U.S. Capitol honoring slain officers throughout the nation, was a chance to talk on to regulation enforcement as he competes towards President Trump within the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Sixty officers have been killed within the line of responsibility in 2023, one fewer than the earlier yr, in keeping with FBI information. The three-year interval ending in 2023 had the very best whole variety of regulation enforcement deaths, 193, out of any such three-year interval up to now 20 years, the information exhibits.
“We owe you as a nation,” President Biden says. “Police officer isn’t just what you do. It’s who you’re.”
Some Biden marketing campaign officers mentioned privately that Democrats are dropping assist amongst rank-and-file law enforcement officials who view the Democratic Occasion as comfortable on crime and biased towards police when their on-the-job actions come beneath scrutiny.
President Trump has already received endorsements from statewide police unions in Michigan and Florida. The Nationwide Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the New York Metropolis police union, which each supported President Trump in 2020, have but to announce their endorsements. The FOP’s basis sponsors Wednesday’s memorial service.
President Biden has tried to occupy the middle on regulation enforcement points. He rejected calls by some liberals to “defund the police,” and as a substitute referred to as on native governments to make use of federal cash to rent extra officers from the communities they police.
Allies have warned Biden’s marketing campaign that it should persuade voters he’s powerful on crime. Current FBI information confirmed vital drops final yr in nearly each crime class, together with homicides and violent crime, from their COVID pandemic-era highs.
However a Gallup ballot final fall discovered that 63 % of Individuals mentioned crime nationwide was “extraordinarily” or “very” severe, up from 54 % in 2021 and the very best within the survey’s historical past.
Jim Tignanelli, president of the 12,000-member Police Officers Affiliation of Michigan, mentioned the union endorsed Trump for the 2024 race partly due to unlawful immigration beneath President Biden, which he mentioned has created a way of lawlessness that jeopardizes law enforcement officials.
He additionally cited President Trump’s promise to grant law enforcement officials broad immunity from legal prosecution and to impose the demise penalty on criminals who kill on-duty law enforcement officials.