[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8912-8916]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          NATIONAL POLICE WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

[[Page 8913]]


  Mr. REICHERT. Madam Speaker, it's an honor and a privilege for me to 
be a servant of the people in the House of Representatives.
  I came to this office through a rather unusual route. My first career 
was in law enforcement. And we are here tonight to recognize National 
Police Week, and especially National Police Memorial Day on Thursday.
  My 33-year career in law enforcement started in 1972. I was a 21-
year-old police officer, a sheriff's deputy with the King County 
Sheriff's Office. I worked patrol for 5 years. I worked as a property 
crimes detective. I worked as a homicide detective. And I've worked as 
a lead detective on a serial murder case. I've worked as a patrol 
sergeant, SWAT commander, a hostage negotiator--just about every aspect 
of law enforcement that you can think of I've been fortunate enough to 
experience--and finally, my last 8 years as first elected Sheriff in 
King County in almost 30 years. And here I stand today, in my second 
term in the House of Representatives, to talk about law enforcement.
  I feel I have, as you might guess, some knowledge about what police 
officers do and what dangers they might face. And this week especially 
is an important week to stop and think about what police officers 
across this Nation do. I think that sometimes we take them for granted, 
the brave men and women who serve all across this Nation to protect us 
each and every day.
  If you think about your life, think about my life and what we do each 
day by getting up in the morning, preparing breakfast, going to work, 
going to school, feeling safe, coming home from work, picking up your 
children from school, we sort of take those police cars for granted 
that we see patrolling our neighborhood. And Sunday, this past Sunday 
we celebrated Mother's Day, an opportunity for families to get together 
with their children and grandchildren, as I did on Sunday with my 
three--actually, two of my children showed up, and some of my 
grandchildren were there, but an opportunity for us to come together 
and celebrate the contribution that mothers make to this Nation. And we 
did it safely in our home.
  But at the same time, I remember, as I was sitting there this Sunday, 
and most holidays, really, reflect back on my career and think about 
those days I was in a police car, as I drove around the neighborhoods 
that I was patrolling and recognizing that all of these families were 
together on this special day, Thanksgiving, New Year's, Christmas, 
Mother's Day, Father's Day, all those days that bring families together 
that I was driving around in my patrol car in those communities, all 
the cars parked at these homes, it was my job, and my partner's job on 
either side of me in the districts that they patrolled, to keep them 
safe while they enjoyed that day. We take that for granted. I think we 
take our freedom for granted.
  I once spoke at the University of Washington not too long after 
taking this office and I was talking to a group of students, 400, 500 
students or so, and really was emphasizing the importance of freedom 
and how much that we need to embrace our freedom and recognize that 
freedom isn't free, not just the men and women who are serving here as 
police officers in our country, protecting us each day here at home, 
but those men and women who are protecting our freedom all around the 
world in our armed services.
  And as I was a little bit passionate about freedom and about how 
important it is for us to recognize that if we don't guard freedom it 
will slip through our fingertips, a young lady in the class raised her 
hand and said--and they still call me Sheriff, by the way--Sheriff, I 
don't understand why you're talking about freedom so much. We have been 
a free country for years, and we're going to continue to be free. That 
really struck me, that one comment by that young college student, 
because she really pointed out what I had believed for a long time, 
that people in this country are taking our freedom for granted.
  Success in our world today, success in our communities today, it 
really depends upon what our police officers do. Remember your police 
officers out there who are balancing, protecting your neighborhoods 
every day. I was the sheriff during WTO. We had 40 to 50 thousand 
people who were rioting in the streets of Seattle in 1999.
  Now, there is a great balance that had to take place there as we 
tried to bring peace to the city of Seattle during those riots. Before 
the riots began, people were saying, let's go to Seattle and listen to 
people speak and express their freedom of speech. And then as people 
arrived and some decided to create havoc, people were a little bit 
nervous because crimes were being committed, the rights of other people 
were being trampled upon by those who felt that their freedom of speech 
was more important than others who were trying to express their freedom 
by going to work, coming home, leaving and going and moving and 
shopping and doing the things that we do every day.
  So at one point what we had to do in WTO during those days was to 
shut the city down. Certain segments of the city of Seattle were 
cordoned off. There was a curfew placed on the city of Seattle on the 
citizens. So freedom was lost. If you think about freedom on a 
continuum, you have the ``freedom to'' and the ``freedom from.'' 
``Freedom to'' is the police officers that raise their right hand and 
say, I swear that I will uphold the Constitution of the United States, 
that I will protect your rights provided to each and every citizen of 
the United States of America. And on the other end of the continuum you 
have the ``freedom from.'' We promise that we will do our best to keep 
you from becoming victims of crime. Well, in WTO you saw that balance 
sway. Freedom was being expressed, people were expressing their freedom 
more vocally than they should have. It got out of control. Chaos 
ensued. Police came in. Freedom was taken away. The balance in the 
continuum of freedom was unbalanced.
  But in America and in Seattle, as peace was restored to the city, the 
curfew was removed and certain areas of the city that were closed off 
were now open once again for people to move about the city. This is 
America, where we recognize that we can't keep people from moving where 
they want to move and go where they want to go. It's a free country.
  So the police have a tough job. Imagine being a police officer, 
50,000 people rioting in the streets and you're one of the police 
officers standing in line trying to protect America, protect the 
citizens of Seattle. And I saw this happen. One of the police officers, 
the sheriff's deputies standing his post shoulder to shoulder with the 
rest, as I was standing behind him, was standing stoically in the face 
of thousands of people screaming and yelling and protesting. And one 
had a stick in his hand and reached over and hit the police officer, 
the sheriff's deputy over the head with that stick. And the sheriff's 
deputy didn't move, just stood there. And they moved the crowd along. 
It's a tough job to balance freedom and protection of America, but our 
police officers do it every day.
  Let's take a moment to talk about and think about National Police 
Week. This is a week where we celebrate and appreciate and remember the 
efforts that all of our police officers put forth each and every day. 
And boy, I could tell you some stories, I would be here all night, 
about my experiences on patrol and some of the things that police 
officers see and the dangers that they face.
  More than 56,000 police officers are assaulted every year. Every 53 
hours a police officer is killed in the line of duty here in the United 
States. I've lost some friends over my 33-year career. I want to share 
their stories briefly. And as you can tell, it's emotional, memories 
that come bubbling up as I remember those days.
  My best friend by the name of Sam Hicks, he and I were working 
homicide together. We were tracking down a killer. He went out one 
night with another friend of mine because they got a tip on where this 
killer was. And as they went out in search of this killer, they found 
him. They began to follow him. And the killer and his brother ambushed 
my partner and shot him in the chest with a .308 Winchester rifle and

[[Page 8914]]

took his life. He left behind a wife and five children. That was June 
1982.
  Two years later, a good friend of mine who was a classmate in the 
academy--in fact, we rode together every day to the police academy in 
1973--Mike Rayburn, a great public servant, excellent police officer, 
dedicated, committed to his job and his family and his community, was 
working a special unit in Seattle. He knocked on a door, the door 
opened, the man opened the door and thrust a World War II sword through 
the crack of the door and into Detective Rayburn's body. He fell and 
died.
  These are only two stories of two special friends. There are many 
people who are touched by the loss of a police officer, mothers and 
fathers, sisters, brothers, spouses, sons and daughters, grandparents, 
neighbors and friends. It's a job we should respect, we should thank 
them for, praise them for, not take for granted, and always remember 
them.
  I'd like to pause in my presentation for a moment and yield some time 
to my good friend who is a judge from Texas, Congressman Ted Poe.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. POE. I want to thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I appreciate your service in the House but also in your other career 
as a sheriff. I'm sure, based upon the information we know about you, 
Sheriff, when you left the State of Washington and came to the House of 
Representatives, the criminals were probably cheering that you had left 
town and you were coming to Washington, DC. But I want to thank you and 
the other several individuals in the House of Representatives who 
served in law enforcement prior to coming to the House of 
Representatives.
  This week is Police Week, May 11 through the 17th. I am proud to be 
the author of House Resolution 1132 to designate May 15 of this year as 
Peace Officers Memorial Day so that we can honor all Federal, State, 
and local peace officers killed in the line of duty or disabled in the 
line of duty.
  As you have mentioned, Sheriff, thousands of local, State, and 
Federal law enforcement officers across the country are injured every 
year. Almost 60,000 a year are injured in the line of duty. Many others 
are also killed in the line of duty.
  Peace officers selflessly protect our communities and our property 
regardless of the dangers they face. Every day when they get up, they 
pin that badge or star on, and they go on patrol throughout this 
country, they always put their life on the line for the rest of us. 
There are almost 1 million sworn peace officers in the United States 
today.
  When I came to Congress, I was the author and founder of the Victims' 
Rights Caucus. This bipartisan group advocates not only on behalf of 
crime victims but peace officers as well, to give bipartisan support 
for the work that peace officers do because many of them also become 
victims of crime.
  You mentioned that you spent 33 years in law enforcement. I saw it 
probably from the other position. You used to catch them and I used to 
prosecute them, so to speak. I spent 8 years prosecuting criminals in 
Houston, Texas, and left the District Attorney's office and became a 
judge in Houston for 22 more years, hearing only criminal cases, 
hearing some 25,000 cases during that period of time. And I saw 
firsthand how police officers became victims of crime. During my years 
as a prosecutor, I knew several peace officers that were injured or 
killed in the line of duty. And since the first recorded police death 
in 1792, there have been almost 20,000 officers killed in the line of 
duty in the United States. Of course, the deadliest day in law 
enforcement history was September 11, 2001, when 72 officers were 
killed responding to international criminal attacks against the United 
States. Last year 181 officers were killed. That's 30 more than in 
2006.
  Law enforcement officers are also frequently the victims of assault. 
They continue to be assaulted day in and day out. And it's not part of 
their duty and job to be victims of assault. But as you mentioned, many 
times they take it because that's what they do.
  Here in Washington, DC., we have the National Law Enforcement 
Officers Memorial. This memorial lists the names of brave men and women 
who have died in the line of duty, and every year more names are added 
to that memorial, and every year more families suffer the rest of their 
lives for being a victim of crime and the loss of their loved one.
  This year, in 2008, Texas has the highest number of law enforcement 
officers that have been killed, with Georgia being second. Ranking in 
the States, California has lost the most, Texas the second most, and 
New York the third most since we have been recording the number of 
officers killed. This week allows us an opportunity to pay tribute to 
these brave men and women who are no longer with us because they 
protected our communities.
  Texas has a high number of officers who have been killed because of 
the unique problem we have with illegal trespassers and that epidemic 
that is occurring on our southern border. You can open a newspaper 
almost every week in Texas and read about some illegal trespasser 
committing a crime, and too often that crime is against a peace 
officer. Right now, as we are here tonight, down in Houston, Texas, an 
illegal trespasser by the name of Juan Leonardo Quintero-Perez, who had 
already been deported from this country once for child molesting, came 
back into the United States and was arrested by Houston Police Officer 
Rodney Johnson for a routine traffic stop. But Officer Johnson was the 
victim of a crime because this illegal criminal shot Officer Johnson 
four times in the back of the head. His wife was also a Houston police 
officer. Now they mourn his loss while the killer is on trial for 
capital murder, too often a scenario that occurs here in the United 
States.
  This week also there is another group that is meeting, and the name 
of this organization is Concerns of Police Survivors, or COPS, as it's 
called. They have their National Police Survivors' Conference this 
week, and it's an organization of 15,000 families of law enforcement 
officers that were killed in the line of duty, and they are meeting 
this week to honor the loss of their loved ones and peace officers 
throughout the United States.
  It is important that we in Congress recognize the work that peace 
officers throughout the United States do on a daily basis. They don't 
get much recognition, and it's our responsibility to make sure that we 
are their advocate and we're their voice.
  When I was growing up in Texas, before we moved to Houston, we lived 
in a small town called Heidenheimer. You've never heard of it, Sheriff. 
But occasionally we would go to the biggest town in our area, Temple, 
Texas. And once I was there with my dad watching a parade, and I 
noticed that there was an individual standing on the side at the curb 
not involved in the parade, just watching the parade. And, of course, 
that was a local Temple police officer. And back in those days, they 
didn't wear uniforms. They just wore a cowboy hat and a white shirt and 
a star, as some of them still do. And I was 5 or 6 years of age. And I 
remember my father told me, because he noticed I was watching this 
individual, he said, ``If you are ever in trouble, if you ever need 
help, go to the person who wears the badge because they are a cut above 
the rest of us.''
  Now, those words were true many, many years ago when I was a kid, but 
they are true today as well. People still, when they're in trouble, 
when they need someone to help them, they go to peace officers, those 
individuals who wear the badge, because they are the last strand of 
wire between the law and the lawless, and they protect us from those 
who wish to commit crimes against our community. They are all that 
separate us from the barbarians, if you will. And we honor them for 
wearing the badge of an American peace officer.
  When September 11, 2001, occurred, all Americans remember what they 
were doing that morning. I was driving my jeep to the courthouse, and I 
was listening to the radio, and it was interrupted, and we heard about 
an airplane

[[Page 8915]]

that crashed into the World Trade Center. And as I continued driving to 
the courthouse, we heard about a second plane that crashed into the 
World Trade Center, the second tower. And then another plane crashing 
in Pennsylvania because of some heroes on that plane, and the fourth 
plane crashing not far from here, into the Pentagon.
  And later that evening, as most Americans were watching television, 
as I was, while peace officers like yourself, Sheriff, were out doing 
your duty on patrol, I noticed that there were thousands and thousands 
of people. When those planes hit the World Trade Center, thousands of 
people were running as hard as they could to get away from that crime 
in the skies.
  But there was another group, not near as many, but they were there 
anyway, a small group, that when those planes hit the World Trade 
Center, they were running as hard as they could to get to that crime 
scene. Who were they? Emergency medical technicians, firefighters, and 
peace officers. And 72 of those peace officers gave their lives that 
day.
  And while it's important that we remember the 3,000 that were killed 
on 9/11, it's equally important we remember those that lived because 
peace officers and other first responders gave their lives so they 
could live and are living today.
  So it's important that we honor our peace officers because they are, 
as my dad said many, many years ago, ``a cut above the rest of us.''
  And that's just the way it is.
  Mr. REICHERT. I thank my good friend from Texas, and it's good to 
have others in Congress who understand the role that law enforcement 
officers across this country play and the important work that they do 
to keep us all safe. And the judges were a great partner for us in 
keeping our communities and neighborhoods safe.
  I want to thank you for your years of service in law enforcement and 
thank you for being here tonight to share some of your thoughts with us 
on National Police Week.
  Some of the things that you mentioned I want to touch on.
  We, as Americans, cannot really talk about success and freedom in 
America and being free in America until we know our children are safe 
and we know our children and family are secure. One of the things that 
I think is important is to have people in Congress who understand law 
enforcement. And for those police officers out there listening, I 
assure you that there are people here who understand and appreciate so 
much what you do. Some of us have been there.
  The judge touched on a number of police officers injured in the line 
of duty. I was one of those in a domestic violence call in the mid-
1970s, back when I was much younger and had dark brown hair. But in the 
middle of trying to save the wife of a deranged person, her husband, I 
was in the battle for my life. This man had a butcher knife and was 
trying to slit the throat of his wife, and I was able to grab her and 
push her out a bedroom window but suffered butcher knife wounds to the 
side of my neck.
  I also understand the need for support, for the community to come 
around us and support us and be there for us when we need them to stand 
up and tell elected officials: We need more police officers. We need 
technology. We need more help. We need you to be there for us and 
support us with budget increases, not budget cuts. We need you to make 
strong laws in your local communities, your cities, and your States and 
your counties that help us do our job, that help us protect American 
citizens from criminals, from being victims, and also to protect our 
rights.
  The United States has some serious problems that we need to address, 
and I don't think they're being addressed the way they should be. 
People know that we have a gang problem. People know that we have a 
drug problem. People know that we have child predators on the Internet, 
sexual predators on the Internet, preying on our children.
  I want to share a few facts with you. Gangs are increasing. We used 
to think about gang problems, drug problems, and those sorts of things 
as inner-city problems, inner-city crimes. These crime activities now 
are spread across the Nation, as you can see by this map. This is an 
indication of the gang problem across our country. The white dots you 
see are where gang activity exists today, and it's pretty much 
maintained the same level over a number of years. The red dots indicate 
increases in gang activity. The blue dots, which you don't see many of, 
indicate a decrease. Now, if you can't see this fully on your TV screen 
at home, please feel free to go to our Web site and check your 
neighborhood, check your city, check your State to see what condition 
your neighborhood is in as far as increase in gang activity and drug 
activity.
  Today there are 25,000 gangs operating in more than 3,000 
jurisdictions in the United States. Gang membership has escalated to 
850,000 members.
  Even more alarming, gangs are increasingly targeting our young kids. 
They're not recruiting kids from college, young men and women from 
college. Yes, they are, but this isn't their target age. They're not 
just recruiting kids from high school. They're not just recruiting kids 
from junior high school or middle schools. But they're also targeting 
our kids who are in elementary schools. The average age of a gang 
recruit today is seventh grade. That's an 11- or 12-year-old child 
being recruited into a gang in some city across the United States of 
America now, today, tomorrow, and the day after.

                              {time}  2045

  What are we doing? According to a 2001 Department of Justice survey, 
20 percent of students age 12 through 18 reported that street gangs had 
been present at their school during the previous 6 months. More than 
one-quarter of the students in urban schools reported a street gang 
presence. Eighteen percent of students in suburban schools and 13 
percent in rural schools reported the presence of street gangs. This is 
not just an inner city problem. This is a problem that is spread across 
this country. It is in suburban schools. And it is in the suburban 
neighborhood that I live in in Washington State.
  Gangs threaten the freedom and security of our communities in many 
ways. They are directly linked to the narcotics trade, human 
trafficking, ID theft, assault, murder and a host of other crimes. 
There were over 631 gang-related homicides in the United States in 
2001. Gangs readily employ violence to control and expand their drug 
trade.
  Now I have personal experience too, of course, with that but more on 
a personal level rather than a professional level as a police officer. 
I want to talk about the impact of drugs on children and families. I am 
the proud grandfather of six grandchildren. Two of my grandchildren are 
adopted. They were foster grandchildren, foster children of my daughter 
and her husband, who were drug-addicted babies. They came into my 
daughter's home and her husband's home when they were about 2\1/2\ 
months old. Little Briar is 6 years old and doing fine. He was 2\1/2\ 
pounds when he was born, a little meth-addicted baby. Little Emma is 5 
years old. She was a crack cocaine, heroin, meth and alcohol-addicted 
baby.
  Think about that for a minute. Drug-addicted babies. Gang members who 
are promoting drugs and selling drugs to young teenage girls on our 
streets who then become pregnant and give birth to drug-addicted 
babies.
  I hope that everyone watching understands the impact of what I just 
said. Do you know what happens when a meth baby is born? Have you ever 
thought about the pain they go through? When they are born, they have 
no idea they are hungry. In fact, they don't know how to eat. They 
don't know how to suck on a bottle. The poison from the meth escapes 
through their bottom. So they put the babies on their belly in a fetal 
position with a warming light over the top of them. The poison, as I 
said, escapes through their bottom. But you can't put any ointment on 
them because it holds the poison against the skin. You can't use baby 
powder. It does the same thing. It creates more pain.
  So what do you do with a meth-addicted baby? You let the baby suffer 
for

[[Page 8916]]

2 or 3 weeks and let the drug escape through the bottom while the baby 
feels intense burning and pain during that period of time. Briar went 
through that. Emma, as a crack cocaine, heroin and meth-addicted baby 
had additional issues to deal with. Today these children are in a good 
home. They have a chance at a good life and to be productive citizens 
in this country.
  But ladies and gentlemen, those are the kids that we need to protect. 
Those are the kids that our police officers are out there every day 
trying to prevent them from becoming drug-addicted babies, trying to 
prevent those young girls that we see out there from becoming mothers 
of drug-addicted babies, trying to prevent those young men out there 
from becoming fathers of drug-addicted babies and then disappearing 
into the streets.
  So we have to say enough is enough. We have a crisis on our hands. 
Gangs, drugs, sexual predators, Internet sexual predators, gangs on the 
rise, organized gangs, 850,000 gang members. Congress needs to stop 
talking about these issues and needs to act. We need to act today. And 
during this Congress, the majority has been silent on this issue. And 
as I said, I understand as a sheriff, as a police officer in a uniform 
driving a police car, and as a detective, I needed the tools then to do 
my job. I know there was a fight in the battle in the budget arena at 
the county council level, at the State level and at the Federal level 
to find us the tools that we needed. But every day we went out and we 
did our job with the tools that we had.
  One of the things I wanted to point out today is that we have, as 
Republicans, presented over 103 pieces of legislation to help police 
officers get the job done. I have to tell you that as a cop, because I 
still see myself as a cop trying to be a legislator, trying to find the 
way to stop the craziness and the violence in this country, where are 
the people of the United States who need to push their representative, 
who need to call their representative, who need to e-mail their 
representative, who need to be pounding on the front door and demanding 
that we do something about gang violence in this country, that we do 
something about stopping the recruitment of our grade school kids and 
junior high school kids into gangs?
  Of the only six bills that we have out of the 103 that the Democrats 
have agreed to accept, and they have actually passed, three of those 
are resolutions. While we support resolutions and the statements that 
they make in support of police officers, in support of stopping crime 
and protecting our citizens, we need real action.
  To address the gang epidemic in our suburban communities, I have 
introduced legislation, H.R. 367, the Gang Elimination Act, that would 
identify and target the three international gangs that present the 
greatest threat to the United States and create a gang most-wanted list 
and develop a national strategy to eliminate the gang epidemic plaguing 
our neighborhood. This bill has not seen the light of day. I even 
testified in front of the committee. That bill has not even seen the 
light of day.
  Why not? Is it because it is a Republican bill? Is it because the 
majority doesn't support the job that police officers are out there 
trying to do every day? Why are we not providing the tools that our 
cops need? I ask that question every day when I come to work in this 
body.
  Crime is on the increase. Violent crime is on the increase. Gang 
activity is on the increase. Drug addiction is on the increase. More 
drug-addicted babies are being born. The pediatric interim care center 
that Briar and Emma were taken to and treated and foster cared out and 
finally adopted by my family has increased their capacity to now nearly 
45 babies that they can hold within that facility. And it's not enough. 
They need more space.
  So I would ask the majority, please consider the other 103 bills. 
Let's bring the Gang Elimination Act to the floor. Let's bring these 
other 103 bills to the floor. Let's act on these today. Let's help the 
police officers out there in our country that need our help today. 
Let's not wait another minute. I demand that we have action here in 
Congress in helping our police officers.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________