[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 9 (Monday, February 7, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE CAPITOL HILL POLICE

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have made a commitment that I would 
come to the floor every day to speak about the Capitol Hill police but 
also about the public. Again, I want to repeat what I have said the 
last couple of days. As did many of my colleagues, I went to the 
service for officers Chestnut and Gibson. It was an unbelievably 
horrible and painful time--first of all, for their families. I do 
believe, at that time and since then, we made a commitment for our 
police officers, and for that matter for the public, that we would do 
everything we possibly could--albeit nothing is 100-percent effective--
to make sure such a tragedy would never happen again.
  I have come to the floor several times to point out that at too many 
posts, or at least at some times at some of our posts, we only have one 
officer. When you have lots of people coming in and you have one 
officer, if, God forbid, you have somebody who is deranged, that 
officer is in real peril and so is the public.
  I know we have made the commitment over and over again to have two 
officers at every post. I am not pretending to be the expert as to all 
the budgets, where the money has been spent, but I know this: We can do 
better by the Capitol Hill police officers, and we should. We can do 
better by the public. Whatever it takes, we need to honor our 
commitment and we need to make sure we have the necessary resources so 
we have two officers at these posts.
  There are many other issues. I am not going to get involved in these 
other issues because I am not the expert. I know what I have observed. 
I know the police officers with whom I have talked. I know the 
commitment we made to these police officers. So I am going to continue 
to speak about this a couple of minutes every day. I am hoping the 
appropriators and others will come through.
  I thank my colleague from Wyoming. I think all of us are in agreement 
on this; I believe this is not a Democrat or Republican debate at all.
  So I thank my colleague from Wyoming and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I believe this next hour is allocated to 
the majority party, is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we are pleased to have a little time to 
talk about some of the issues that will come up, some of the issues 
that are on the agenda and some that are not. I appreciate the comments 
of my friend from Minnesota. Certainly that is an issue we are all 
interested in, and I appreciate the effort he is making on that.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague.

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