Richard B. Nugent: “I thank Sheriff Reichert so very much for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we are here at a very solemn time in the law…”

“I thank Sheriff Reichert so very much for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we are here at a very solemn time in the law enforcement community. National Police Week is the week that we honor those who have fallen the year before and in all of the prior years. When Sheriff Reichert was talking about the statistics of assaults on law enforcement officers and about the number of law enforcement officers who are killed annually, behind each of those stories is a real person--a son or a daughter who is not coming home anymore, or a wife or a husband. I have been a police officer. I was a police officer for 38 years, and I was ultimately a sheriff in Hernando County, Florida. I have buried my share of fellow law enforcement officers in those 38 years-- too many to even talk about without bringing a tear. I can tell you, as a rookie police officer who was right out of the academy, in the first year I was on the street, one of the guys with whom I went through the academy was shot and killed. That was the first year out of the academy. I was held hostage at one point in time in my career by a guy who was intent on killing his wife. We all have stories like that. Sheriff Reichert is one of those true heroes in law enforcement. He is too modest to talk about the times that he has been assaulted, stabbed, or of the folks he has put in jail--the Green River Murderer. That is just the type of people we are. We are very humble.…”