Bill Pascrell: “As we just heard from my good friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert), as co-chairs of the Law Enforcement…”

“As we just heard from my good friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert), as co-chairs of the Law Enforcement Caucus, this is an important piece of legislation for us. Mr. Speaker, as the lead Democrat sponsor of this bill, the Probation Officer Protection Act, I rise in strong support of closing a gap in the current law to help Federal probation officers more safely and effectively carry out their duties. Despite the fact that assaulting, resisting, or otherwise preventing Federal probation officers from performing their official duties is against the law, current law does not provide the same officers the authority to correct or restrain an interfering third party. This act simply expands the authority of the Federal probation officers to arrest a third party with probable cause in cases where a third party tries to physically obstruct or harm the officer. I understand that some of my friends worry about the implications of expanding arrest authority for law enforcement. I have to say there are a lot of trumped up arguments being made against this bill. For starters, Federal probation officers are fully trained and sworn Federal law enforcement officers. They have a tremendous training program in Charleston, South Carolina, the Law Enforcement Training Center. They understand that this training is a continuing process as well.…”