[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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