Events This Week

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRANK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand here today on National Police Week to honor the great men and women who protect us every single day, who wear the badge, and who protect our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I thank specifically our El Paso County Sheriff's Office and our Colorado Springs Police Department and all of the local law enforcement in Colorado. They put themselves on the front lines every single day.

I have had the pleasure of doing ride-alongs with our sheriff's office and our Colorado Springs Police Department. I say to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, that if you haven't stood in their shoes, don't be critical of the job that they do because if you take the time to go do it--and many times we have people who come and want to shadow a Member of Congress for a day--it is a great opportunity to do that. Take a minute and shadow a police officer for a day. Go on a ride-along and learn what they do. I have, as I said, had the privilege to do that many times.

I recall being on a ride-along in the middle of the night, total darkness, walking up on a car. The police officer has a flashlight, and had I not been there, that police officer would have been there by themselves, and essentially they were there by themselves. I wasn't armed. Imagine doing that for a living day in and day out. Imagine pulling a car over on the side of the road and not knowing if it is just a lady or a man who had a little bit of a lead foot or whether it is an escaped killer who is going to gun you down.

That is the danger that the men and women of law enforcement face each and every day.

It is easy for us to come here to Washington, D.C., and to the Capitol every day and cast our votes. Why? Because we have police who protect us each and every day, back in our home communities, but also right here at the U.S. Capitol.

In my former life, I was a talk show host. I did many other things, but as a talk show host, in my community one time, there was a shooting. It was unfortunate. It was a young man who got pulled over. Police were questioning this young man, and as he was talking to the police, he turned and started to run. As he turned and started to run, he reached into his shorts, and he started to pull out a gun. By the way, they had been told before a description of this young man and that he had a gun. As he turned to run, he was fired upon by the police officer, one shot, and it killed the young man, sadly. There was another man with him who didn't resist. By the way, he survived and did well.

There were some members of my community who stood up and wanted to make an issue out of that, and I kept reiterating the fact that unless you stood in their shoes, what would you do? What would you do if you were the person who had to make that split-second decision about whether or not you were going to fire to save your life or to take the life of another person?

I also met, by the way, with that police officer after that. He was very emotional, and he told me that he had spent nearly 20 years patrolling that community, 20 years sitting with young girls who had been sexually assaulted as victims and with their families and helping them through that, 20 years dealing with someone in that community who had been murdered. He was their advocate. He was their protector for 20 years.

All of a sudden, when his life was threatened and a gun was pulled on him, there were some in the community that didn't support him.

We don't ever want that to be the case in the United States of America. For me, unless you stand in their shoes, you can't be critical.

They protect our communities, and I want to emphasize that our local law enforcement in Colorado Springs, in El Paso County, in southern Colorado, choose to work with Federal authorities. They are not ICE agents, but they go to a lot of places. They work with our Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to root out people who are breaking the law. They help protect our communities.

That same police officer who you complain about when you get pulled over because you had a lead foot, Mr. Speaker, that same police officer is the police officer who you call in the middle of the night when you hear a noise in the backyard and something at the door.

We have to protect the rule of law, and we only do that through protecting our men and women of law enforcement.

A few weeks ago in Colorado Springs, we had a raid by the DEA of a nightclub where over 100 people were detained and arrested for criminal activity. There was trafficking of adults and trafficking of children. There were drugs. There was all sorts of illicit behavior there.

The men and women of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, the Colorado Springs Police Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and many others worked hand in hand to make sure that the citizens of my community stayed safe through that all.

I also thank the men and women of the United States Capitol Police, whom I walk past every day. Mr. Speaker, I urge every Member, as they go past our police officers, not to grumpily look at them, not to pass by and act like they don't exist, but to take a moment to shake their hand, tell them thank you, and look them in the eye and tell them how much you appreciate them.

We couldn't conduct our business, the business of the United States Government, in this Capitol Building if we didn't have those men and women who stand watch for us each and every day, and we need to be very thankful for them, as well.

I will continue to support the police as long as I serve here in the people's House. It is important to me, to my community, and, most importantly, to the rule of law. If we don't respect the rule of law, we will lose everything in the United States of America.

We have to have a system that our Founders established that allows us to know that we will be treated fairly. We pass the laws, and those laws are then carried out by law enforcement all across the country. We expect them to be carried out in the traditions of our Founding Fathers, in the tradition that people are treated fairly, that if they get pulled over for speeding, they will be treated the same way.

We have the protections of our Constitution that our police abide by. We are so fortunate in America to have the men and women who protect us each and every day, and we must continue to protect them and stand with them.

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