Trump leads police boosterism event
White House showcase highlights heroic deeds
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump met Monday at the White House with law enforcement officers and people who have had positive interactions with them.
Guests included William Kimbro and Corey Reece, sheriff ’s deputies from South Carolina and Florida, who were praised for their quick response in helping people in trouble.
The experiences of the people at the roundtable included the rescue of a child who was no longer breathing, the intervention of an off-duty deputy in an attack on a woman and her child, an off-duty officer who expedited emergency response to a near-fatal car wreck, and other stories of police professionalism.
A member of the Georgia House of Representatives, Democrat Vernon Jones, also took part in the discussion.
He previously served as a county executive and said he has been tasked with speaking with families who have lost loved ones to police shootings and with the families of officers killed in the line of duty.
“Law enforcement needs more funding, not less,” Jones said.
Jones, who is Black, said most people, including African Americans, want police to enforce the law.
“They just want it done fairly,” he said. Jones slammed Black Lives Matter protesters for caring more about some black lives than others, and he referenced the 8-year-old girl who was recently shot and killed in Atlanta when the car she was riding in turned into a parking lot occupied by protesters.
At the roundtable, Trump continued his broadsides against the Black
Lives Matter movement as his campaign tried to tie them to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
“Reckless politicians have defamed our law enforcement heroes as the enemy,” Trump said. “They call them the enemy. They actually go and say they’re the enemy and even call them an invading army.”
Trump said he couldn’t believe that some people want to defund or disband law enforcement agencies at a time when the murder rate is soaring in many cities, including Atlanta, Chicago and New York.
The president said the carnage in America’s most liberal cities makes Afghanistan look “tame” by comparison.
Trump warned that if the violence continues, he would send federal officers in “to take over.” He said that he has offered to send federal help to several mayors of such cities and that they had all declined the assistance.