[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 20 (Monday, May 23, 1994)]
[Pages 1080-1082]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the National Police Officers Memorial Service

May 15, 1994

    Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Dewey Stokes, not only for 
that very fine introduction but for the 13 years that the Fraternal 
Order of the Police has sponsored this National Police Officers Memorial 
Service and for your many terms as leader of this distinguished 
organization. Thank you, Karen Lippe, for your service. It's an honor 
for me to be here with so many of our distinguished Federal law 
enforcement officials, including Chief Gary Albrecht, the chief of the 
Capitol Police; John Magaw, the Director of the Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms Bureau, formerly the Director of the United States Secret 
Service and once a member of the FOP as a trooper in Ohio, a person 
who's given his entire life to law enforcement. I'd like to say a 
special word of thanks, too, to our Attorney General for bringing to the 
National Government a real understanding of what it's like to be 
involved in the world of law enforcement at the grassroots level, where 
the crimes are committed, where the violence is greatest against our law 
enforcement officials, where so much of our work needs to be done.
    My fellow Americans, you know better than anyone else for every name 
that is added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, there's 
a face, a family, and a human tragedy. Three months ago in Columbus, 
Ohio, I met the widow and the precinct sergeant of police officer Chris 
Klites, who was shot to death on duty after he stopped a suspicious car. 
He had married just a month before he was killed. This morning I met the 
families of police officer Stephen Faulkner of Kansas City, and I had 
met Mrs. Faulkner earlier at a health care forum. I saw her two fine 
sons today. And Deputy Sheriff Norman Tony Silva of Denver, I met his 
wife and his wonderful young son today. Raymond Silva wrote me a letter 
at age 7, which I still have and which I reread this morning before I 
came over here. He said in his letter, ``My Dad was 30 years old when he 
got shot. He used to play games with us and make us laugh. His badge 
number was H7048. I wish you could know him; he was the best Dad ever.''
    We owe a lot to that young boy. We owe a lot to every spouse, every 
child, every grandchild, every parent, every uncle, every aunt, every 
brother, every sister, every friend of all those whom we come here to 
honor today. We pay tribute not only to those who have died but to those 
who have lost them, to the survivors. And we pay tribute to the more 
than half million law enforcement officers who still go to work every 
day, not knowing for sure if that day they will be required to make the 
ultimate sacrifice.
    I hope all of you today who come here with your personal grief bear 
also a continuing pride in the work that your loved ones did. I hope 
those of you who come to honor others will not flinch in your pride and 
will

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continue to pray for the safety of those who serve.
    Today, I would say that, more than anything else, we ought to 
rededicate ourselves to becoming a country worthy of the heroes we come 
here to honor. Every day, law enforcement officers take the oath to 
uphold the law and defend citizens. Fear is a constant companion. Still, 
law enforcement officers go out every day wearing the badge and the 
uniform that symbolize that commitment. These are--these commitments, in 
a way acts of faith that most Americans, most of the time are going to 
do what is right and deserve to be protected, deserve to be honored, 
deserve to have the risks of life as we all work together to be the 
country we ought to be.
    That is why I say today as citizens, we are the ones who should be 
taking a solemn oath to the law enforcement community that this next 
year we will all work harder to be the country we ought to be. Because 
if we don't restore the fabric of civilized life in this country, then 
it is ultimately futile for us and unfair for you to ask you to go out 
on the streets and risk your lives. We must determine that we are going 
to become a less violent, less dangerous, less crime-ridden, more 
hopeful, more unified society. We owe that to the people who we will 
honor today, to their families, and to the future of this country.
    We are clearly moving in the right direction, but sometimes it takes 
us too long to do the right thing. I appreciate what Dewey said about 
the Brady bill. Those of you who understand how it works know it is 
already moving to save lives, but it should not have taken 7 years and a 
whole national election to get that done. We are moving in the right 
direction, but we must move more quickly.
    Under the leadership of the Attorney General, the Justice Department 
has already granted funds to 250 American communities of all sizes to 
increase their police staff. Much of what we still need to do is in the 
crime bill now before the Congress to which Dewey Stokes referred. If we 
pass it, as we should, it will put another 100,000 police officers on 
the street in community policing settings, not only working to catch 
criminals but to work with each other to make policing safer and to 
reduce crime before it occurs.
    This bill will take assault weapons off the street, 19 different 
ones, making sure that police officers will not be outgunned by 
criminals armed with weapons of mass destruction. It should not have 
taken this crime bill 5 years to get to this point, but it has and now 
we are moving. Against enormous odds, 216 courageous Members of the 
House of Representatives stood up and were counted in favor of the 
assault weapons ban. I hope all of you in law enforcement will go home 
to the districts of those 216 Representatives, without regard to their 
political party, and stand up for them because they stood up for you.
    Many of them put their political lives on the line in the hopes that 
it would help you never to have to put your life on the line. That is 
the sort of attitude we need among the American people today. This bill 
has tougher penalties, including the ``Three strikes and you're out'' 
provision. We recognize that there should be capital punishment for 
people who kill law enforcement officials in the line of duty. And we 
recognize, too, something that Congress will be called upon to grapple 
with as we finish this crime bill, and that is that we must invest in 
prevention and use law enforcement officials in the work of prevention.
    Law enforcement officials tend to be much more supportive than many 
politicians in the work of keeping young people away from crime in the 
first place, because people in law enforcement know how some tender, 
smart, intelligent act to a young child may head off a whole life of 
crime and another tragedy 1 or 2 or 5 or 10 or even 15 years down the 
road. And I thank the law enforcement community for their leadership to 
keep prevention a part of our efforts to make America a safer place.
    I also want to thank all of you who personally give your time to 
that. I'll never forget the first time my daughter came home from school 
and talked to me about her D.A.R.E. officer in her fifth grade class. 
And I'll never forget in that year how I learned more about that man and 
his work and his family than I did about anything else going on in the 
school. Do not ever think that you don't have a big impact on the young 
people of this country when they see you in the uniform,

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standing up for what's right and showing that you care for them. There 
are so many kids in this country in so much trouble. They need you, and 
you can make a difference.
    The job of law enforcement is so dangerous today not only because 
criminals are better armed but because our society is too often coming 
apart when it ought to be coming together, because too many of you deal 
with the wreckage coming from the breakdown of family and work and 
community. And I think you know that we all have to do something about 
that.
    Just yesterday I saw the tragic story of the young 13-year-old boy 
here in a community near Washington, DC, who came from a poor family and 
had just won a scholarship to a fine school to give him a chance to live 
a better life. And he was standing, waiting for a bus when he got caught 
in the crossfire between two gangs, senselessly killed, his whole life 
taken away just when so much hope was opened up.
    There is something profoundly wrong when so many children are out 
there killing other children with no thought, apparently no 
understanding, of the consequences. And I tell you, my fellow Americans, 
it is still true that the vast majority of us are law-abiding, God-
fearing, family-loving, hard-working people. But too many of us are 
falling between the cracks of life.
    And so I say again, today we must dedicate ourselves, all of us, to 
making America worthy of the sacrifice of the law enforcement officials 
who have fallen and those who still risk their lives every day. I ask 
today that we say a prayer on this beautiful Sunday for the law 
enforcement officers and their families who paid the ultimate sacrifice, 
for our fellow citizens who have been victims of crime and violence, and 
for those who live halfway in prison, behind locked doors and barred 
windows, and a prayer, ultimately, that somehow we can change the heart 
and mind of America. We must change our country so that more of us live 
up to its best hopes and its ideals.
    I am encouraged that we are moving in the right direction. The Brady 
bill, the grants to communities for police, the crime bill: this means 
America is awakening to this problem. But in the end, it is you, the 
people who live in our streets, in our neighborhoods, who work in our 
communities, who go to our churches on Sunday, who must help to teach 
America to keep faith with justice, with our fellow citizens, and with 
our country's proud heritage. The whole future of America is riding on 
it. We have turned the tide, now we must continue until the work is 
done.
    Thank you all, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:22 a.m. on Capitol Hill. In his remarks, 
he referred to Dewey Stokes, national president, Fraternal Order of 
Police, and Karen Lippe, president, Fraternal Order of Police Auxiliary.