Jim Baird: “Today, I rise to show my support for our men and women in law enforcement. Unfortunately, there is a growing movement…”

“Today, I rise to show my support for our men and women in law enforcement. Unfortunately, there is a growing movement across this country that is trying to defund police departments and disparage the character of all of our police officers. This movement is having deadly consequences on our communities. We are starting to see what happens when we defund the police. For the first time in decades, violent crime is rising in the United States. Major American cities saw a 33 percent increase in homicides in 2020. Many of these cities took the advice from radicals and slashed their police departments, with the ultimate goal of defunding them. These reckless decisions didn't make our communities safer. Instead, it only empowered criminals and put those most vulnerable in harm's way. All Americans want bad police officers to be held accountable, but all Americans also want to be safe in their own communities. Police officers risk their lives every day to try to make that a reality. Congress should focus on making sure our police departments have the resources they need to keep criminals off the street while implementing the needed reforms to hold accountable bad officers.”