    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [May 15, 2000]
    [Pages 930-933]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Peace Officers Memorial Day Ceremony
    May 15, 2000

        Thank you very much. Thank you, Gil Gallegos, for your kind remarks and your leadership and all these
    years we have spent working together. I want to say to you and all the
    other leaders of this organization and the auxiliary--

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    Lmae Tull, Steve Young,
    Jim Pasco, and others--how much I
    appreciate what you have done in working with me and Attorney General
    Reno, Secretary Summers, and the other members of our administration.
        I also want to thank the Members of Congress who support us every
    year. I see Congressman Gilman and
    Senator Kennedy over there. There may be
    others from Congress here, but I thank them for coming.
        I thank the law enforcement executives, chiefs, and the rank-and-
    file members across America who are here today. And most of all, I thank
    the many family members of our fallen officers who have come here to
    observe this event in the midst of all their pain and loss. I appreciate
    the support of our fellow Americans for your endeavors.
        Today they were embodied by the wonderful song my longtime friend
    Tony Bennett sang--I thought he was terrific.
    And they are embodied by the prayers and actions of so many of your
    fellow citizens. I would like to mention just one today, on a personal
    note.
        Law enforcement doesn't have a better friend in the Congress than
    the former State policeman from Michigan named Bart Stupak. Bart and his wife, Laurie,
    lost their son over the weekend, and I hope you will remember them in
    your prayers, because he has been as good a friend as the people in blue
    have ever had in the United States Congress.
        The event we commemorate today has a long history, not just 19
    years. In 1789, 211 years ago, just a year after our Constitution was
    ratified, a United States marshal named Robert Forsyth was shot and
    killed in the line of duty. Since then, over 14,000 law enforcement
    officers have given their lives to protect the liberties upon which
    America was founded.
        We owe these brave men and women a debt of gratitude that is
    immeasurable and unending. Every year we come here to honor them, carve
    their names in stone so that future generations will know who they are
    and know that they died as they lived, as heroes.
        I could talk about all of them represented here today, and their
    families. Time doesn't permit, so let me just tell you two stories that
    I found to be representative.
        Corporal Steven Levy, of the Washington Township, New Jersey, Police
    Department, always believed in being out front on public safety, whether
    saving a drowning man from icy waters or teaching self-defense classes
    to women and children during off-duty hours. Last October he was out
    front again when he led his SWAT team into a house where a domestic
    dispute had escalated into gunfire. When there, he was shot through a
    closed bedroom door, leaving behind a wife and two young children and a
    legacy of service never to be forgotten.
        Officer James Henry Camp was a community police officer walking the
    beat in some of Chicago's toughest public housing developments. A big
    ex-marine, he won the respect of young men whom he counseled away from
    gangs and drugs and the love of little children for whom he always had a
    piece of candy. One day last March he and his partner stopped two men
    driving a stolen car. While making the arrest, Officer Camp was shot and
    killed. He was a newlywed.
        Today we recall the service and all the stories of the courageous
    law enforcement officers, 139 of them, whose names will be added to the
    Roll of Honor this year. Their purpose and passion was the safety of the
    people. We can never repay them or their families, but we can honor
    them, and not just with words but with action.
        You heard Gil Gallegos talk about the role of law enforcement in the
    declining crime rate. I always try to make sure the American people know
    how it happened. Men and women in uniform did not give up when, year-in
    and year-out, the crime rate went up. We decided 7 years ago to try to
    give you some support, because it was obvious already that there were
    strategies in many of our communities that would work to bring down the
    crime rate: more police, more prevention, tougher penalties.
        You told us that assault weapons and illegal guns were undermining
    your ability to fight crime and drugs. So we passed the assault weapons
    ban; the Brady law, which has stopped over a half million felons,
    fugitives, and stalkers from buying handguns; banned the cop-killer
    bullet; provided 100,000 more police for our neighborhoods, ahead of
    schedule and under budget.
        Last week we learned that, thanks to you, crime is now down for 8
    years in a row. Every officer here and every family here who has lost a
    loved one should be very proud of the lives you have saved in the United
    States of America in bringing that crime rate down.
        Yet no one here believes we are safe enough, and the very fact that
    we now know what works imposes on all of us an even higher
    responsibility to do more of what works: to put more

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    police on the street in the toughest neighborhoods; to hire more
    prosecutors and ATF agents and inspectors; to go after gun crimes; to
    invest in gun-tracing systems until we can trace every bullet in every
    gun used in a crime anywhere in America.
        I also believe we must pass more commonsense gun safety legislation:
    the child trigger locks, banning the importation of large ammunition
    clips, closing the gun show loophole. We passed it last year in the
    Senate, when the Vice President cast the
    tie-breaking vote, but it's been stalled here for 10 months. And
    yesterday on this Mall, there were somewhere between a half a million
    and 750,000 mothers gathered, and over a million in 70 sites across
    America, to say that we shouldn't wait any longer for this kind of
    legislation. I hope we will listen to what they had to say. It will also
    save a lot of police officers' lives.
        Last Friday the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Henry
    Hyde, and his Democratic counterpart, John
    Conyers, made some real progress to resolve
    the impasse we're having over this legislation and the gun show
    loophole. I thank them for their efforts. This should not be a political
    issue. It should not be, and it is not, about taking guns away from law-
    abiding citizens. It's about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals
    and keeping more of our citizens, especially our children and our police
    officers, alive. I hope the conferees will meet and pass legislation so
    that I can sign it.
        I also think we have to do more to protect law enforcement officers,
    men and women who risk their lives every day. Sixteen years ago now,
    when I was Governor of my home State of Arkansas, a friend of mine, a
    State trooper by the name of Louis Bryant, made what he thought was a
    routine traffic stop. He stopped a man in an RV, who was a political
    radical with an arsenal in the vehicle, and he was shot to death. Then I
    was told that if only he had a bulletproof vest on, he probably would
    have survived.
        I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I knew his wife; his
    brother-in-law was one of my State troopers on my security detail. I
    lived through their agony. And so I began to try to make sure every
    police officer in our State could have a vest. Every police officer in
    America should have one.
        Two years ago I was proud to sign the Bulletproof Vest Partnership
    Grant Act. Now, the Federal Government pays up to 50 percent of the cost
    of vests that State and local officers buy--or agencies buy for their
    officers. To date, we've purchased over 92,000 of these vests. There's
    enough money in this year's budget to increase that number to 180,000.
    But I asked Gil today and the Attorney
    General how many law enforcement officers needed
    them, how many are in the line of fire. We figure there are at least
    twice that many, twice that 180,000. But the program is set to expire
    next year.
        So today I intend to ask Congress to support new legislation offered
    by the original sponsors of the bill, Senator Leahy, Senator Campbell,
    Congressman Visclosky, to extend the
    program for 3 more years and double the funding. If we do it, we'll be
    able to protect every single police officer in the United States with a
    bulletproof vest.
        I also want to thank Gil Gallegos
    and your organization for the work you are doing to see that a medal of
    valor is awarded to honor the courage of officers who move above and
    beyond the call of duty. There is legislation to do this in Congress,
    but it is now stalled. Today I have directed the Attorney General to develop a plan to create an award through executive
    action of the President to recognize public safety officers who have
    exhibited extraordinary valor.
        You should not have to wait any longer. And there are many reasons
    bills get caught up in Congress, not all of them the fault of the
    Members who are supporting them or those who have the committee. But we
    should not wait. This country, every year, should issue a medal to honor
    extraordinary acts of valor by police officers.
        Shortly before he, himself, was killed in 1968, Robert Kennedy said
    that the fight against crime is a fight to preserve that quality of
    community which is at the root of our greatness. The fallen officers we
    honor today put themselves at the forefront of that fight. And they do
    exemplify America's greatness.
        Nothing we say or do will bring them back. Perhaps nothing we can
    say or do can ease the pain of their families or the sorrow in your
    hearts. Only God and time and family and friends can do that.
        But we do want you to know, every one of you, we honor them, and we
    honor you. The best way for us to continue to do that is to press on
    with the struggle for a safer America, a struggle they thought was worth
    their lives.

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    And it's certainly worth everything we can possibly do.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

     Note:  The President spoke at 1:25 p.m. on the West Grounds at the
    Capitol. In his remarks, he referred to Gilbert G. Gallegos, president,
    Steve Young, vice president, and James O. Pasco, Jr., executive
    director, Fraternal Order of Police; Lmae Tull, president, Grand Lodge
    Fraternal Order of Police Auxiliary; and singer Tony Bennett. The Peace
    Officers Memorial Day and Police Week proclamation of May 11 and the
    Executive order of June 29 on establishment of the Presidential Medal of
    Valor for Public Safety Officers are listed in Appendix D at the end of
    this volume.