Bob Wise: “this building offers a great challenge, and that is it is a balance that has to be reached between where the people's…”

“this building offers a great challenge, and that is it is a balance that has to be reached between where the people's elected representatives meet and where the people come to view their elected representatives and their Nation's heritage. Officer Chestnut and Detective Gibson met that test and kept that balance on Friday. This is a sad and anguishing day. My wife, who has worked on this Hill longer than I have, I think, probably summed it up for me as we discussed this and thought about our thoughts and our prayers which were with the two families. She noted that two wives had lost their husbands as their husbands protected many other husbands and wives, and likewise children have lost their fathers as their fathers protected other children. There are thousands of children from each of our districts that come through these halls every day, and they owe their safety and protection to men and women like Officer Chestnut and Detective Gibson. Mr. Speaker, there is no way you can cope with loss like this except you try to hang onto the memories. And to the families that we know have those strong memories I would just say this: that as you have their memories to hang onto, please know that there is a much larger family and community that have those memories and they are hanging onto them too, and that their fathers and husbands and loved ones, Officer Chestnut and Detective Gibson, those memories are strong in all of us, and they will live through that.”