National Police Week is a time to honor, remember, and find unity with other officers. It is also a time for law enforcement, survivors, and citizens to gather and pay homage to those who gave their lives in the line of duty.
This year, National Police Week returned to in-person events in Washington D.C., and we were overjoyed to see the turnout of retired and active officers, along with friends, family, and pro-police citizens. This week is special for the entire law enforcement community, and during this event we witnessed a continued shift back towards normalcy as those that gathered showed their strength, resilience, and bravery amidst the most difficult few years in remembered history for our law enforcement.
Even our current President, left-leaning as he is with a history of clearly anti-police ideals, noted the importance of funding our officers on the last day of National Police Week. In his National Peace Officers Memorial Day Speech at the Capitol, Biden stated: “We should agree it’s not to defund the police — it’s to fund the police. Fund them with the resources, the training they need to protect our communities and themselves and restore trust.”*
This week represented so much to active and retired law enforcement as well as their friends and families, along with loved ones there to commemorate the 617 officers that died last year alone.
What we saw this week was, in a word, unity. And we hope that this is the new trend we will continue to see: full civilian and bi-partisan support of our brave men and women in blue that risk their lives daily to keep their communities safe. We have seen the shift and push-back against the anti-police rhetoric that seemed to hit a fever pitch in 2020. Now is time for the last big stand to send the leftist extremist ‘war on cops’ rhetoric into the most shadowy corners of our society, never to return to the mainstream again. For while we may never be able to fully eradicate these dangerous notions completely, it is becoming more and more clear to law-abiding citizens how much they need our law enforcement to defend law and order.
Thank you to all those that made National Police Week 2022 possible, thank you to the officers that have served our great nation, and a special tribute to those brave men and women that gave the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty.
Written by James Fotis, President
National Center for Police Defense, Inc.,
Continuing to Protect Police Officers from the System They Protect and Serve
*https://www.ksl.com/article/50405435/biden-balances-anti-crime-and-reform-agendas-in-message-to-police
