[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992, Book I)]
[May 8, 1992]
[Pages 727-728]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to Firefighters and Law Enforcement Personnel in Los Angeles

May 8, 1992
    Let me just say I'm very pleased that the Governor's with us and 
Senator Seymour's with us. And really, what we did is to want to come 
over here and, one, see where some of the action stemmed from, but 
mainly to thank the firefighters and the patrolmen for a heroic job well 
done.
    You know, at a time like this you think of your faith, and you 
remember that the Bible talked about, ``Blessed are the peacemakers.'' 
Well, I must say, when I think of the firefighters and the highway 
patrol, I think of what you have done and, frankly, do all the time in 
keeping the peace and restoring the peace. You certainly have the 
gratitude, you may not know it, but you have the gratitude of people all 
across this country.
    I wanted to just recite a fact or two that you all know but the rest 
of the country might not. There were almost 6,000 fires responded to, 
nearly 12,000 arrests, thousands of buildings saved along with untold 
lives. That, I would say, is just one of the legacies of your work. And 
there was another one: You showed that people that would wantonly 
destroy, wantonly terrorize, wantonly kill their fellow citizens were 
not going to prevail. What you did took a good deal of courage, whether 
it was the patrol, whether it was the firefighters. I salute you for 
that, the country salutes you for that. And I think your very presence 
restored a sense of civility to an otherwise outrageous situation.
    Yesterday, I was privileged to go to a memorial service--it was 
National Day of Prayer--at Reverend E.V. Hill's church. When I mentioned 
those who worked to restore the law, the police, et cetera, why, it 
broke out in spontaneous applause. People are very grateful in the 
neighborhoods for all that you have done.
    I heard a lot of stories, anecdotes about what went on. They told me 
about Rich Perez, the lone gunman, the only armed officer guarding 
L.A.'s traffic control center. And these rioters came in and tried to 
break down the doors. Somehow, he managed to convince the rioters that 
they had met their match, and they turned away. And the traffic control 
system was safe and sound, and a legend was born.
    I've just come from the hospital, from seeing one of your own, one 
of the firefighters' own, Scott Miller. You talk about courage and you 
talk about the way his fellow firefighters helped him, it's a great 
lesson for our whole country. Incidentally, he's a courageous man. They 
told me that what had happened to him was serious. But they also told 
me, the doctor, that because of his spirit, the same spirit so many of 
you exemplified, that he's going to make it. He's fighting hard, and his 
wife was there and his kids--his kids weren't, but they were together as 
a family. I'll tell you, the doctors and nurses are rallying around, and 
he's getting the best possible care.
    But here was another example of an innocent guy going out to help 
others, taking a shot from some hoodlum going by in a car. And we just 
cannot condone that sense of violence, that kind of violence, anywhere 
in this country for whatever reason. There's no explaining it. There's 
no rationalizing it. And I will try to take that message to the country 
day in and day out.
    There was Captain Kaemmerer, a captain of a fire company which 
doused flames at an ammunition shop in the face of gunfire. Here's a guy 
going into what you might call a hostile environment anyway, 
firefighting captain, and fighting that.
    We all know the case of the LAPD's Michael Strawberry, Darryl's 
brother. Darryl

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said, ``Michael was my rock.'' Well, that's fine. And the LAPD have 
many, many such rocks, people doing a job and doing it well. And you 
were rocks, saving buildings and saving lives. These pictures that I was 
handed, I mean, I'll tell you, they make a profound impression on--I'm 
sure they make an impression on firefighters, but they make a profound 
impression on the layman to think about battling something this powerful 
and doing it with the heroism and the dedication you do.
    So, really, what I wanted to do is drop in here, trying to do it 
just as President of the United States, trying to leave the politics 
back there somewhere on the Potomac and come out here to see what I 
could see with my eyes and to give my heartfelt thanks to those--in this 
instance, highway patrolmen, firefighters--who have done so much for 
their country.
    So that's my message, and it's a profound one in a sense that today 
and yesterday it was the riots in Los Angeles, tomorrow it'll be 
something else. And over the last years it's always been the same, the 
dedication, the selfless dedication. I don't want to think any of you 
guys would say you're overpaid, but you're doing something for your 
fellow man, and that in itself means an awful lot to your country.
    So thank you, and may God bless you.

                    Note: The President spoke at 7:51 a.m. at Fire 
                        Station No. 26.