[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 20 (Monday, May 22, 1995)]
[Pages 836-837]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6800--Peace Officers Memorial Day and Police Week, 1995

May 15, 1995

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    Each year, we pause to remember and to honor the brave men and women 
whose heartfelt commitment to the law and to their fellow citizens cost 
them their lives. During 1994, we lost 56 law enforcement officers to 
on-duty accidents. Seventy-six officers--72 State and local police and 
four Federal agents--were murdered. Thirty-three of these officers were 
wearing body armor when they were killed. All but one were killed with a 
firearm. Three were gunned down inside police headquarters in our 
Nation's capital.
    America's law enforcement officers face extraordinary risks--
breaking up a drug ring, apprehending a fugitive, responding to an 
incident of domestic violence, even making a traffic stop. Since the 
first recorded police death in this country in 1794, more than 13,500 
law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty. On 
average, more than 62,000 officers are assaulted and some 20,000 are 
injured each year.
    Tragically, the dangers of law enforcement service are increasing. 
From 1960 to 1993, the number of violent crimes in America increased 567 
percent. In the past 10 years, it increased 51 percent. During 1993, 
more than 1.9 million violent crimes--murders, rapes, robberies, and 
assaults--were reported to police. And our police responded.
    Despite the rising tide of crime, good and brave men and women 
continue to join the ranks of law enforcement. Today, more than 600,000 
sworn officers work every day to preserve the peace and improve the 
safety of cities and towns across America. These heroic individuals and 
their fallen colleagues come from many different backgrounds. But they 
are linked by a common faith--that freedom is worth defending and that 
justice shall prevail. For those who died to uphold these ideals and for 
those who still stand to protect them, we salute America's law 
enforcement officials.
    The Congress, by a joint resolution approved October 1, 1962 (76 
Stat. 676), has authorized and requested the President to designate May 
15 of each year as ``Peace Officers Memorial Day,'' and the week in 
which it falls as ``Police Week,'' and by Public Law 103-322 (36 U.S.C. 
175) has requested that the flag be flown at half-staff on Peace 
Officers Memorial Day.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, do hereby proclaim May 15, 1995, as Peace Officers 
Memorial Day, and May 14-20, 1995, as Police Week. I call upon the 
people of the United States to observe this occasion with appropriate 
programs, ceremonies, and activities. I also request the Governors of 
the United States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the 
appropriate officials of all units of government, to direct that the 
flag be flown at half-staff on Peace Officers Memorial Day on all 
buildings, grounds, and naval vessels throughout the United States and 
in all areas under its jurisdiction and control, and I invite the people 
of the United

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States to display the flag at half-staff from their homes on that day.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day 
of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-five, and of 
the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
nineteenth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 2:38 p.m., May 15, 1995]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on May 17.