[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 69 (Wednesday, April 27, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S2175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Violent Crime

  Madam President, on another matter, last week in my hometown of 
Louisville, I sat down with law enforcement officials and local leaders 
to discuss our skyrocketing rate of violent crime.
  The participants came from a wide variety of backgrounds, but 
everybody agreed murders, shootings, robberies, carjackings, and 
overdoses are simply out of control. Louisville recorded 188 homicides 
in 2021, an alltime record. Twenty-four of the victims were children.
  Just recently an anti-gun, anti-police activist made national 
headlines when he tried to assassinate a Jewish Democratic Louisville 
mayoral candidate.
  Jefferson County saw more than 500 drug overdose deaths last year, 
hundreds more than in years before the pandemic. These problems are 
literally overwhelming the city's coroners.
  One expert I met with said that violent crime has stolen more years 
of potential life from Louisville than the pandemic. Carjackings are up 
over 200 percent in the last 2 years. We now average more than one 
carjacking every 48 hours. Folks on the ground say they are also seeing 
nonfatal shootings and gang activity increasing.
  This crime spree is coming from the tiny minority of Louisville 
residents. One half of 1 percent of the population manages to commit an 
outright majority of all the city's violent crime. That is possible in 
large part because many are let out back on the street within days of 
their arrests.
  Of course, this isn't just a Louisville problem. We have seen violent 
crime soar nationwide since the far left's national anti-police and 
anti-law enforcement campaign that began back in 2020. Cities 
everywhere are under siege. Here in Washington, in broad daylight just 
yesterday, there was literally an armed robbery right outside the 
headquarters of the FBI.
  Polls show 69 percent of Louisville residents oppose--oppose--the 
``defund the police'' movement and 66 percent want more police in their 
neighborhoods. But many Democrats are still unwilling to openly call 
for law and order in our streets. As a result, police officials say 
their officers feel under siege. They are worried politicians will not 
have their back.
  Another huge factor is President Biden's failure to secure our 
borders. I was told at last week's roundtable that every bit of deadly 
heroin and fentanyl in our city streets now comes across our southern 
border. As long as this administration neglects to enforce our laws, 
every State becomes a border State.
  We need to secure the border and stop narcotics flooding our 
neighborhoods. We need officials at all levels to back the blue, crack 
down on crime, and re-establish law and order.
  But the Biden administration gives us just the opposite. They 
nominated and confirmed a Supreme Court Justice who argued that COVID 
justified early release for every single prisoner in Washington, DC. 
Just yesterday, the President issued a giant catalog of pardons and 
commutations, cutting sentences after sentence after sentence, 
particularly for convicted drug criminals. They never miss an 
opportunity to send the wrong signal. And until Federal, State, and 
local Democrats get with the program, innocent people in Louisville and 
across the country will continue to suffer.