[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 80 (Monday, May 10, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2405-S2406]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Police Departments

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, today I want to discuss an unfortunate 
trend that has grown over the last year.
  Since March of 2020, the United States has been battling COVID-19. We 
have lost over half a million Americans because of the virus. But I am 
talking about another tragedy today, and that is the tragedy that I 
call ``war on the cops.''
  Two months after the pandemic hit and sparked by the death of George 
Floyd, cities all across the country broke out into violent riots. Much 
of that violence has been directed at law enforcement, and it has taken 
a very serious toll.
  During the 2020 riots, more than 900 law enforcement officers were 
injured, including 277 officer injuries while defending the Federal 
courthouse in Portland and 60 Secret Service officers defending the 
White House. In September, a gunman ambushed two Los Angeles sheriff 
police deputies as they sat in their squad car. In January 2020, a 
violent mob attacked police defending the Capitol. Just last month, a 
young man killed a Capitol Police officer performing his duties.
  Police across the country are suffering from demoralization and 
fatigue. By the end of last summer, police officers were quitting the 
force in large numbers. Last August, 49 officers retired from the 
Portland Police Bureau in Oregon. That is more than it lost in all of 
2019. By the end of last summer, 140 officers had quit the Atlanta 
Police Department by that point in the year. That number had been only 
80 in the previous year. In Washington, DC, over 300 officers have quit 
since last June. Only half of those were retirements; the other half 
just walked away.
  We must consider, what does that mean for the crime in these cities? 
In Portland, murders increased 60 percent in 2020 from the year before. 
Arsons were up 95 percent. In Atlanta, murders were up 62 percent in 
2020 from the year before. Aggravated assault was up by 15 percent. In 
Washington, DC, here, murders were up 22 percent in 2020 from the year 
before. So far this year, murders are up even more--33 percent so far 
in 2021 compared to this point last year. Professor Paul Cassell at the 
University of Utah estimates that reduced policing in dangerous 
neighborhoods last year caused an additional 1,200 homicides in 
America's largest cities.
  But the problem isn't just with keeping police officers on the force; 
there is also a problem with getting new ones as well, including in my 
State of Iowa. Recently, the Des Moines Police Department reported it 
had received half the applications it did last year. At the county 
level, the Polk County Sheriff's Office usually gets hundreds of 
applications for deputy vacancies but recently got only 50 
applications. The Council Bluffs Police Department told me at one of my 
recent county meetings that it was having the same recruiting 
difficulties.
  This is a problem that police departments are having all over the 
country, with hundreds of vacancies across cities like Louisville, New 
York, Philadelphia, and Portland. How could this be? Well, for the last 
year, there has been a lot of hatred and vitriol directed at the 
police. If a police officer uses excessive force, he or she should 
suffer the consequences, but it often seems like our national media 
would have us believe that any use of force by police is unjustified.

[[Page S2406]]

  Even Members of Congress sometimes join this sort of demagoguery. A 
month ago, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib tweeted, ``No more policing, 
incarceration, and militarization. It can't be reformed.'' Back in 
January, Congresswoman Cori Bush tweeted, ``Defunding the police isn't 
radical, it's real.'' This sort of talk is dangerous for people in 
neighborhoods that depend heavily on police officers to keep them safe.
  Law enforcement officers have to make split-second decisions that 
could be the difference of life or death for themselves or someone they 
are trying to protect. That is what we train them to do. Sadly, we 
sometimes need them to use force in order to keep the rest of us safe.
  Now, we are used to seeing videos on the internet of police officers 
using deadly force. But if you want to see really good policing in 
action, I would suggest people look at another video. It is on the 
internet. Just do a simple search of ``Los Angeles deputy Mercedes 
Benz.'' You will come across a video of a Los Angeles sheriff's deputy 
doing a routine traffic stop of a driver who had been using her phone 
while behind the wheel. In this video, the driver calls the deputy a 
``murderer'' and then mocks him for being Hispanic and taunts him for 
supposedly wishing he were White. That video will make your stomach 
turn. But throughout the video, the deputy is courteous and 
professional. I suspect nearly all enforcement officers conduct 
themselves and their work in that way. They have a very hard job to do 
and deal with people who often don't want to deal with the police. Most 
of them do that job very professionally and respectfully.
  I worry that because of the threat of violence, the condemnation by 
the media, and daily abuses like this one, more and more police 
officers won't want to do the job anymore. And I worry that more and 
more young adults won't want to start careers in law enforcement. We 
need more qualified people who want to be police officers, not fewer.
  We can't keep up like this. We can't keep scaring away our police 
officers while telling the next generations of Americans that cops are 
evil. They are not evil. They are our friends and neighbors who make a 
career out of keeping us safe. When the outside world becomes a 
dangerous place, they show up and we expect them to show up.
  The outside world is not going to stop being a dangerous place. Let's 
make sure cops don't stop showing up. Let's end the war on cops.