[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.