[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 103 (Tuesday, July 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H6490]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IN TRIBUTE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, the American people have come to learn
something that the Congress has dramatically now started to realize.
These are not country club jobs. The Capitol Police place their lives
on the line like every other police department in the Nation.
My district, the 17th Congressional District of Ohio, joins with the
Congress and the Nation in mourning the loss of Officer Chestnut and
Detective Gibson.
The standards of the Capitol Police were always very high, but
Officer Chestnut and Detective Gibson have now raised the bar several
notches, and that bar of excellence is very high. We are all proud, and
we all join in as the Nation mourns these two great policemen.
But I want to talk to the Members who may be watching this telecast
in their offices; to the Speaker; to my good friend, the gentleman from
Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) in the back; and to all the staff here. The
Uniformed Division of the Secret Service makes more money than the
Capitol Police for basically the same service.
I take to the floor today as a former sheriff to say security needs
of the Nation's Capitol and the Nation's buildings should be addressed.
For all of the Members of Congress, on the tragic bombing of the
Federal building in Oklahoma City, there was only one guard on duty for
the three Federal buildings in Oklahoma City, and that guard was a
contract guard, not a full-service, Federal-protective-service-system
guard.
We now have to put ourselves in Congress under the microscope. Are we
doing all we can? Have we gotten involved with budgetary numbers? I
think the time to raise the level of compensation of the Capitol Police
is at hand. It will cost $4 million a year to elevate them to parity
with the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service.
Let me also say this to the Congress, it is good economics. Good
economics I say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh). Because if
we do not, we spend $50,000 to training our Capitol policemen, and
Montgomery County, Fairfax County, Alexandria, they come in and hire
after the scrutinization of the FBI background checks, and they recruit
and take our young men and women, and they disrupt the flow of
continuity. That must not happen.
H.R. 2828 should be now brought to the floor under the unanimous
consent, and that is the tribute that should be paid to these two great
policemen, Chestnut and Gibson.
They say words are hard to describe them. As a former sheriff, I
would just like to use these words to describe them: They were
policemen. Our police officers, the Capitol Police, are some of the
best in the world.
The only deaths that occurred were to the officers of the Capitol
Police. The people they were responsible for are all breathing. There
is not a police department in the United States that could have reacted
any better to a crisis of such volatility.
I say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), I think H.R. 2828
should have been done. But I understand the legitimate concerns. I know
Congress now is reviewing that whole matter. I think the most fitting
tribute would be for the Congress of the United States to bring out
H.R. 2828 under unanimous consent and take our Capitol Police into
parity with the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service. They do the
same job. By God, if the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service can
do it any better, I would like someone to try and convince me of that.
To the families of Officers Chestnut and Gibson, your husbands, your
fathers, they were really heroes. They were policemen for one of the
finest law enforcement departments in the Nation, the Capitol Police
that protects each and every one of us.
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