Thank you, Sheriff. I appreciate your comments, Lawyer Gowdy; as I call him, his comments. I know that the outlaws in Washington State are glad you are in Congress and you are not back in Washington arresting them and putting them in the…
Thank you, Sheriff.
I appreciate your comments, Lawyer Gowdy; as I call him, his comments.
I know that the outlaws in Washington State are glad you are in Congress and you are not back in Washington arresting them and putting them in the jailhouse where a lot of them belong. But thank you for the opportunity to speak at this very important Special Order.
As you know, while you were a sheriff in Washington, I was down at the courthouse in Texas, first as a prosecutor, like Lawyer Gowdy, and then, for 22 years, I tried criminal cases, felonies, everything from stealing to killing.
I met a lot of police, as I call them, during that time. Some of them, as Mr. Gowdy has pointed out, gave their lives in the line of duty. I met them in the middle of the night when they would come bringing a warrant to me to sign so they could go arrest somebody while the rest of us all slept. They are doing what they do best, and that is protecting and serving our communities.
A lot of police officers--and I don't think it has been said yet-- their job is being a police officer, but most of them have other jobs just to make ends meet. They have an extra job, as we call it, because they don't make a lot being a police officer. None of them ever do it for the money--none of them anywhere in the world do it for the money. So to support their families, they have to have other jobs to do that.
I think we as a nation need to understand and appreciate that they do what they do because they feel, and it is, an important service to our community.
Last year, 135 police officers throughout the Nation were killed; 64 of them were shot and killed, and 21 of those were ambushed.
Among the States, my home State of Texas had the most police officers killed. Twenty-one were killed last year in the line of duty. We also had five canines that were killed that worked with police.
I have here a photograph--or a poster of the 21 officers killed in the line of duty in the State of Texas last year; all races, both sexes, all ages throughout the State of Texas. Last year, we saw probably more than I can remember, this phenomena of hate and ambush of police officers.
On July 7, 2016, five Dallas police officers were shot and killed as they were protecting a protest demonstration in downtown Dallas.
What occurred was a sniper who had been preparing, obviously for some time, was watching this procession go by and he opened fire on those police officers. Other than 9/11, this was the most deadliest day for police officers in the United States.
Shortly before 9 p.m., a domestic terrorist--and I am not going to give his name. His name is not important. The names of the officers are what is important--parked his black SUV on Lamar Street. He put on his body armor. He got his automatic weapon ready to fire, and he started stalking Dallas police officers.
As those Dallas police officers and a DART officer--DART is Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer--marched along with the protesters, he opened fire on them with the intent to kill as many as he could. So gunfire rang out and bullets struck and killed Senior Corporal Lorne Ahrens, Officer Michael Krol, Officer Patrick Zamarripa, and three Dallas police officers were wounded, along with a civilian.
But the sniper wasn't through yet. He headed back up Lamar Street-- and that is in downtown Dallas--shooting out the windows of a nearby college campus, El Centro College campus. During that time, he injured two El Centro College police officers trying to get into the school.
He had continued on his quest to kill officers and he snuck up behind a DART officer--his name, Brent Thompson--and shot him in the back and killed him. He then turned his way on to Elm Street nearby and shot his way back into El Centro College.
All of this took about 20 minutes. Police officers were following this sniper, trying to capture him, but this individual went up to the library in the school and started firing down. His next victim was Officer Michael Smith, and he injured yet another DART officer.
He was cornered in the library. Chief of Police Brown said: During that 2-hour-long negotiation, the individual lied to us, played games, laughed at us, sang, and continually asked how many of those coppers did he kill?
Eventually, the Dallas SWAT team took care of the sniper, and he was killed.
In total, five officers were killed, seven others were wounded. And these officers were killed for the sole reason that they wore a uniform, that they wore a badge or a star over their heart, symbolizing protecting us from the do-bads. That is why that badge is there over their heart. They were willing to give their life so that we might have peace, order, and safety; and on that day, five of them did.
In total, like I mentioned, 21 officers were killed in Texas last year, the most in any State. I include in the Record their full background and the departments that they worked with.
Their names are: Officer David Hofer, Patrolman David Ortiz, Trooper Jeffrey Nichols, Border Patrol Agent Jose Barraza, Officer Endy Ekpanya, Sergeant Stacey Baumgartner, Officer Calvin McCullers, Jr., Sergeant Michael Smith, Officer Michael Krol, Officer Patricio Zamarripa, Officer Brent Thompson, Senior Corporal Lorne Bradley Ahrens, Officer Marco Zarate, Correctional Officer Mari Johnson, Officer Justin Ryan Scherlen, Officer Amir Abdul-Khaliq, Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Maltby, Corporal Robert Ransom, Border Patrol Agent David Gomez, Commander Kenneth Starrs, and Detective Benjamin Marconi.
Roll Call of Heroes
1. Officer David Stefan Hofer, Euless Police Department.
End of Watch: March 1, 2016.
2. Patrolman David Ortiz, El Paso Police Department. End of
Watch: March 14, 2016.
3. Trooper Jeffrey Don Nichols, Texas Department of Public
Safety--Texas Highway Patrol. End of Watch: March 26, 2016.
4. Agent Jose Daniel Barraza, United States Department of
Homeland Security--Customs and Border Protection--United
States Border Patrol, US. End of Watch: April 18, 2016.
5. Officer Endy Nddiobong Ekpanya, Pearland Police
Department. End of Watch: June 12, 2016.
6. Sergeant Stacey Allen Baumgartner, Patton Village Police
Department. End of Watch: June 19, 2016.
7. Officer Calvin Marcus McCullers, Jr., Southern Methodist
University Police Department. End of Watch: July 5, 2016.
8. Sergeant Michael Joseph Smith, Dallas Police Department.
End of Watch: July 7, 2016.
9. Officer Michael Leslie Krol, Dallas Police Department.
End of Watch: July 7, 2016.
10. Officer Patricio Enrique Zamarripa (Zamarreepa), Dallas
Police Department. End of Watch: July 7, 2016.
11. Officer Brent Alan Thompson, Dallas Area Rapid Transit
Police Department. End of Watch: July 7, 2016.
12. Senior Corporal Lorne Bradley Ahrens (Lorn Bradley
Aarons), Dallas Police Department. End of Watch: July 8,
2016.
13. Officer Marco Antonio Zarate (Zah-rot-ee), Bellaire
Police Department. End of Watch: July 12, 2016.
14. Corrections officer Mari Anne Johnson, Texas Department
of Criminal Justice. End of Watch: July 16, 2016.
15. Officer Justin Ryan Scherlen, Amarillo Police
Department. End of Watch: August 4, 2016.
16. Officer Amir Abdul-Khaliq (kah-leek), Austin Police
Department. End of Watch: September 4, 2016.
17. Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Hubert Maltby, Eastland County
Sheriff's Office. End of Watch: September 7, 2016.
18. Corporal Robert Eugene Ransom, Gregg County Sheriff's
Office. End of Watch: September 30, 2016.
19. Agent David Gomez, United States Border Patrol, US. End
of Watch: November 16, 2016.
20. Commander Kenneth Joseph Starrs, South Texas
Specialized Crimes and Narcotics Task Force. End of Watch:
November 16, 2016.
21. Detective Benjamin Edward Marconi, San Antonio Police
Department. End of Watch: November 20, 2016.
Mr. Speaker, these were real people. And as Sheriff Reichert said earlier, these people have families.
Lastly, I would like to mention one other officer whose name I read. His name was Sergeant Stacey Baumgartner. He worked at a little bitty police department called Patton Village in Texas, right outside of Houston, and he was killed when his patrol car collided with another vehicle while he was involved in a hot pursuit.
He is survived by his wife, his son, and his daughter, Chloe. This is a photograph of Chloe taken last week in Austin, Texas, at the Texas Peace Officers Memorial Service event. This is her. It was posted by the police chief of Patton Village, Texas. It expresses the families, the humanity of their fathers and their mothers, and how we as a people need to understand the consequences when people murder our finest.
God bless the thin blue line.
And that is just the way it is.