President Joe Biden addressed police officers on Wednesday gathered in Washington to honor slain colleagues as he tries to prevent his Republican rival former President Donald Trump from capturing high-profile endorsements from their unions in the coming weeks.
President Biden’s speech, at the annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service at the U.S. Capitol honoring slain officers across the country, was an opportunity to speak directly to law enforcement as he competes against President Trump in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Sixty officers were killed in the line of duty in 2023, one fewer than the previous year, according to FBI data. The three-year period ending in 2023 had the highest total number of law enforcement deaths, 193, out of any such three-year period in the past 20 years, the data shows.
“We owe you as a nation,” President Biden says. “Police officer is not just what you do. It’s who you are.”
Some Biden campaign officials said privately that Democrats are losing support among rank-and-file police officers who view the Democratic Party as soft on crime and biased against police when their on-the-job actions come under scrutiny.
President Trump has already won endorsements from statewide police unions in Michigan and Florida. The National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the New York City police union, which both supported President Trump in 2020, have yet to announce their endorsements. The FOP’s foundation sponsors Wednesday’s memorial service.
President Biden has tried to occupy the center on law enforcement issues. He rejected calls by some liberals to “defund the police,” and instead called on local governments to use federal money to hire more officers from the communities they police.
Allies have warned Biden’s campaign that it must convince voters he is tough on crime. Recent FBI data showed significant drops last year in almost every crime category, including homicides and violent crime, from their COVID pandemic-era highs.
But a Gallup poll last fall found that 63 percent of Americans said crime nationwide was “extremely” or “very” serious, up from 54 percent in 2021 and the highest in the survey’s history.
Jim Tignanelli, president of the 12,000-member Police Officers Association of Michigan, said the union endorsed Trump for the 2024 race partly because of illegal immigration under President Biden, which he said has created a sense of lawlessness that jeopardizes police officers.
He also cited President Trump’s promise to grant police officers broad immunity from criminal prosecution and to impose the death penalty on criminals who kill on-duty police officers.
