Steve Daines urges U.S. Senate to Join him in ‘Backing the Blue’
Montana Senator Steve Daines appeared before the U.S. Senate on Wednesday and urged the deliberative body to ‘Back the Blue’ and support full funding for police and other law enforcement agencies around the country.
Daines referenced the bravery of Gallatin County Sheriff’s personnel as they helped evacuate residents during a recent wildfire.
“My home County Sheriff in Gallatin County, Brian Gootkin just over a week ago, we had a huge massive wildfire that struck the Bridget Canyon just north and east of Bozeman in my hometown of 56 years,” said Daines. “Huge plumes of smoke and a great big fire of over 11,000 acres. They rushed into the fire and evacuated the residents. 28 homes were destroyed and yet not a single person lost their life, and I can tell you why; because it was the actions of the Gallatin County Sheriff's Department, the firefighters and other agencies.”
Then, Daines referenced Missoula and a recent attempt to reduce or withhold funding from the city police department.
“In cities and towns across our country, including Montana's very own city of Missoula, they were talking about reducing their budgets and proposing abolishment in some areas, abolishment of police departments. That talk is crazy. We have some of this crazy talk in Montana. There were some of our communities that were looking to take school resource officers out of our schools, they were looking to slash budgets, and thankfully the community rose up and they pushed back and in most cases have stopped it, but that's happening right in Montana in some communities.”
Daines forcefully reminded the Senate about the two California sheriff’s deputies that were critically wounded while sitting in their patrol vehicle, and how protesters blocked the Emergency Room entrance at the hospital, chanting ‘let them die’. He challenged Congress to stand behind law enforcement.
“The Senators standing before you today will not accept it,” he said. “We should not be defunding the police. We should be defending them and my Democratic colleagues who support defunding these American heroes, these Montana heroes, you should be ashamed because I will always back the blue.”
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