[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
[July 20, 1995]
[Pages 1127-1128]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to Federal Law Enforcement Officials
July 20, 1995

    Thank you very much, Eljay. If you want to see which job has more 
stress, this is the print on his introduction, and this is the print on 
my card. [Laughter]
    Let me say, first of all, I came here to express my appreciation to 
all of you for continuing these regular meetings and increasing our 
ability to do the work of law enforcement by this kind of coordination. 
I think it is terribly important, and I thank you for doing it.
    Because so many issues involving Federal law enforcement have been 
in the public's mind in the last several weeks, I would like to say a 
few things and then just sit here and visit with you and listen to you 
for a while. Let me begin by saying that we all know that this country 
still has too much violence, too many drugs, too many gangs, that the 
culture of violence is still causing enormous difficulty in our country.
    There was a profoundly moving story in one of our newspapers today 
about a 16-year-old boy who just shot a 12-year-old boy dead because he 
thought he'd been treated with disrespect. And this comes just a few 
days after a national survey in which two-thirds of young gang members 
said they thought it was acceptable to shoot a person just because they 
treated you with disrespect.
    This is the environment that we have to change in America today, the 
paranoia, the division, the willingness to resort to that kind of 
destructive behavior. And that's why I've been so disturbed about the 
recent attempts to attack police officers, in general, for doing their 
jobs. People may disagree with certain laws, like the ban on assault 
weapons, but that doesn't give them a right to disobey the law. People 
have no right to assault or kill police officers simply for doing their 
duty.
    Now, I want to talk just a minute about the Waco hearings and 
especially what happened yesterday. We know that law enforcement people 
made mistakes at Waco. Our administration said that in 1993. We had an 
exhaustive review, and when the results came in, we took appro-


[[Page 1128]]

priate action. Changes were made; people were dismissed. That's the way 
our system is supposed to work, in an open and accountable way. 
Congressional hearings were held in 1993 and in 1994. And if Congress 
wants to have further hearings today, that is their right, and it is 
entirely appropriate. We have to hope some more good things will come 
out and we can learn how to better do our jobs.
    But I think it's important to get the facts here quite clear. 
Yesterday's testimony was a sad and painful reminder of the depravity 
that took place inside that compound and the facts which confronted the 
President, the Attorney General, and the Federal law enforcement 
officials at the time. Here was a man who was molesting young girls and 
paddling children with boat oars, a man who was laying up supplies and 
illegal weapons for Armageddon, a man who was instructing women and 
children about how to commit suicide, a man who took the trust of young 
children and twisted it, who told people that if they wanted to do the 
will of God they had to be willing to kill for God.
    Those are the facts. There is no moral equivalency between the 
disgusting acts which took place inside that compound in Waco and the 
efforts that law enforcement officers made to enforce the law and 
protect the lives of innocent people. There is no moral equivalency. 
That is the point that has to be hammered home over and over. It is 
irresponsible for people in elected positions to suggest that the police 
are some sort of armed bureaucracy acting on private grudges and hidden 
agendas. That is wrong. It's inaccurate, and people who suggest that 
ought to be ashamed of themselves.
    People in law enforcement make mistakes. There are all kinds of 
people in law enforcement, just like there are all kinds of people in 
any endeavor, and all people, the last time I checked, were imperfect. 
When people make mistakes, they ought to be held accountable and 
appropriate action ought to be taken.
    I said yesterday, I am appalled by what happened at that gathering 
in Tennessee. We're going to find the facts. We're going to take 
appropriate action. But that is a very different thing from suggesting 
that there is some sort of equivalency between what the law enforcement 
officers tried to do at Waco and the kind of things that were going on 
in that compound. And this country needs to be able to make that 
distinction and not to forget it.
    In Oklahoma City, after the terrible bombing, Americans were wearing 
a T-shirt--I've got a copy of it here that was given to me, and I'd 
never seen this before. But this T-shirt shows all the different things 
that Federal law enforcement officials do and mentions all the different 
agencies and has the following quote on it, ``A society that makes war 
against its police had better learn to make friends with criminals.'' 
That's a fact.
    We need to be accountable. We need to get all the facts out. If we 
make a mistake, we need to correct it. But we must not make war against 
police. And we must not confuse making mistakes with the moral 
equivalency of what decent people are doing to protect the citizens of 
this country with the awful things that happened in that compound at 
Waco.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:12 p.m. in the Blair House. In his 
remarks, he referred to Eljay Bowron, Director, U.S. Secret Service.