Dan Bongino Gives Impassioned Speech Urging for an End to “Defund the Police” Movement
“Please stop the defund the police abomination before someone gets hurt.”
Wednesday, podcast host and former Secret Service agent, Dan Bongino spoke before the House Judiciary Committee, where he pleaded with lawmakers to forgo “stop the defund the police abomination before someone gets hurt.”
His short speech is worth the watch. You’ll also find the transcript beneath.
"Police officers are the frontlines, putting themselves between the evil-doers among us, and the honest, hard-working Americans yearning for security and prosperity." –@dbongino
Don't. Defund. The. Police. pic.twitter.com/YsiXXEAbir
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) June 10, 2020
The transcript, in all caps, because that’s how C-SPAN publishes transcripts:
I DEEPLY APPRECIATE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK ON THIS CRITICAL ISSUE. I AM DEEPLY SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS AND I HOPE YOU TAKE SOLACE IN THE JUSTICE WE PRAISE TO COME. IT WAS A TOUGH VIDEO TO WATCH FOR ALL OF US. POLICE OFFICER DAN O’SULLIVAN WAS A FRIEND OF MINE. WE WENT TO THE ACADEMY TOGETHER AND WE LOST TOUCH WHEN WE GRADUATED. WE WERE ASSIGNED TO SEPARATE PRECINCTS IN DIFFERENT AREAS OF NEW YORK. DAN AND I WERE BRIEFLY REUNITED IN 1998. IT WAS NOT A JOYOUS OCCASION.
I WAS REUNITED WITH DAN IN THE HOSPITAL IN QUEENS WHERE HE WAS HOSPITALIZED WITH DEVASTATING INJURIES AFTER PULLING OVER, OFF-DUTY, TO ASSIST A DRIVER AND A CRITICAL EMERGENCY SITUATION. HE WAS HURT BADLY. DAN WAS THE VERY ESSENCE OF A PUBLIC SERVANT.
HE ALWAYS PUT HIMSELF LAST WHILE PUTTING HIS COMMITMENT TO THE SAFETY OF THE PUBLIC HE PLEDGED TO SERVE FIRST. THAT WAS THE DAN I KNEW. MY PLAN OF THE NYPD AND UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE I HAD THE HONOR AND PRIVILEGE OF WORKING WITH AGENTS AND POLICE OFFICERS WHO COMMIT THEMSELVES TO A HIGHER CAUSE. JUST LIKE DAN, I MET SO MANY COMMITTED PUBLIC SERVANTS THAT I CANNOT EVEN RECALL ALL OF THEIR NAMES. THESE ARE GOOD MEN AND WOMEN.
YES, WITH ANY PROFESSIONS THERE ARE OFFICERS, NO QUESTION, MORE SUITED FOR THE JOB. SOME WILL CAUSE TROUBLE AND SOMETIMES WORSE. WE HAVE SEEN THAT. IN MY EXPERIENCE THIS IS RARE. THE SPECIAL AGENTS I WORK WITH AND REMAIN FRIENDS WITH, THE NYPD, NEW YORK CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT, ON THAT TRAGIC DAY OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 — THEY SPRINTED INTO THOSE BUILDINGS AND ESCORTED PEOPLE OUT.
WE ALL KNOW THOSE BUILDINGS COLLAPSED AND TAKING MANY OF THOSE NYPD SOULS WITH THEM. THOSE BRAVE SOULS RUNNING INTO THE BUILDINGS AND EVERYONE ELSE WAS EVACUATING. THESE ARE THE TYPES OF PEOPLE I WAS HONORED AND PRIVILEGED TO WORK WITH. PUBLIC SAFETY CAME FIRST. EVERYTHING ELSE CAN SECOND. SOMETIMES EVEN THEIR OWN FAMILIES.
TO DEFUND THE POLICE WOULD TARGET THESE PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT SOME AMORPHOUS MASS, THESE ARE REAL HEROES, IN REAL TIME, RIGHT NOW. REMOVING THESE HEROES FROM YOUR COMMUNITY IN MY COMMUNITY WILL DO NOTHING BUT ENSURE CHAOS AND DESTRUCTION.
POLICE OFFICERS ARE THE FRONTLINES, PUTTING THEMSELVES BETWEEN THE EVILDOERS AND AMERICANS. WE CAN AND SHOULD COMMIT TO POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY, BUT WE DO NOT NEED TO SHRED THE WALL. THERE ARE A FEW JOBS IN THE COUNTRY AS STRESSFUL AS POLICING. I RECEIVED A EMAIL OR TEXT A FEW TIMES OF YEAR NOTIFYING ME OF THE DEATH OF A POLICE OFFICER I KNEW, WORK WITH, OR HAD WORKED WITH.
THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MINUTE.
GOD FORBID YOU FOUND OUT A COWORKER OF YOURS WAS KILLED IN THE COURSE OF DOING THEIR JOB. YOU JUST GET A TEXT. YOU GOT THIS A COUPLE OF TIMES A YEAR. THAT IS POLICING. THAT IS WHAT THEY DO. THEY RISK THEIR OWN LIVES FOR YOURS.
I WILL SAY IN CLOSING I SPOKE AT A EVENT YEARS AGO AND A SPOUSE OF ONE OF THESE HEROES SAID THIS. “THE MOST WONDERFUL SOUND IN THE WORLD FOR THE SPOUSE OF A POLICE OFFICER IS THE SOUND OF VELCRO AT NIGHT.” THAT IS HOW A POLICE OFFICER’S BODY ARMOR IS SECURE TO THEIR BODY AND WHEN THAT COMES OFF AND A SOUND ECHOES IN THEIR EARS, THE FAMILIES OF THESE HEROES KNOW THEY ARE FINALLY HOME SAFELY.
I ASK YOU WITH THE GREATEST OF RESPECT AND HUMILITY, PLEASE STOP THE DEFUND THE POLICE ABOMINATION BEFORE SOMEBODY GETS HURT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.
And some reaction to Bongino’s speech:
Great to hear from @dbongino at the @JudiciaryGOP hearing today. His remarks are a great reminder of the selflessness and sacrifice of our law enforcement officers on the front lines.
Police officers should be held accountable, but not villainized for upholding the rule of law.
— Congressman Greg Steube (@RepGregSteube) June 10, 2020
https://twitter.com/dbongino/status/1270749256148754432?s=20
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Comments
“The broad sweeping accusation of “systemic racism” cannot be used to hide the sins of Minneapolis, Baltimore, Chicago and LA among others. They are demanding that we all must pay for their sins. These cities should bear the brunt of all costs for what they did to their people. Unless they learn from their mistakes nothing will change.”
Of course, they will place the whole city prostrate before any aggrieved group but that’s the core of resolution for class conflict and identity politics. Without a police force, other forces arise to control the public square. The next step in Seattle would be to expand the “free state” and rally fellow travelers to their cause and territory.
Indeed. And, who has exercised decades-long, exclusive control over these cities, and, predictably run them into the ground, via corrupt, incompetent, anti-business, anti-accountability and pro-union slavishness? The vile, contemptible Dhimmi-crats.
The Dhimmi-crats are attempting to spin a contrived, fallacious and viciously false narrative of pervasive racism, when most of the racist incidents are happening in cities that they control.
It’s why those good citizens are making a huge mistake coming to clean up after them. Leave it as a reminder every time the scum wander around town.
Let that crap rot and put a fence around them and make them live with it.
These radical yahoos would not be clamoring for LE to be defunded or hamstrung if the LEOs were corrupt. If the entire LE community, in this country, is corrupt, then no amount of laws will ever affect them. They would simply ignore them and continue on as before. If defunded, they would simply set themselves up as private guardians of the populace and “tax” the residents for protecting them. And, there would be no force to stop them from doing so.
A local politician was complaining that his local police refused to engage in activities which the government official was pushing, which they viewed as being counter productive, to the LE mission, and possibly illegal. During negotiations, he stepped up before the entire police force and told them they were worthless and would never see a dime more than they were making while he was in office. I later pointed out to him that literally every man and woman in that room, except him, was armed. And, if they had been teamsters, they would have needed a derrick to remove his body from the stage, because of all the lead in it. The point is that the vast majority of LEOs actually go far out of their way to obey and enforce the law. That is why those who want to destroy this nation want them removed, not because they are corrupt.
I am semi-patiently awaiting some documentation of the ongoing, systemic and institutionally supported random murders of the hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent black people by the police. This claim is made often, but nothing in the way of supporting evidence ever appears.
I couldn’t be a made up claim, could it?
** IT couldn’t be…..** Damn!
Who cares about innocence and guilt?
Who cares about the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
All that matters is the sound of velcro!
(I think it is a myth, don’t they leave their body armor at the station when they change back into streetclothes when they go home)?
Maybe they are pulling babies out of incubators in the neo-natal units and leaving them on the floor (see Kuwait and Iraq War 1).
I will also note the speech was IMPASSIONED. Feelings. Just like the left. Who cares about reason and evidence when you can make someone feel good or bad about a policy.
I would like to have a reasonable discussion on the issue, but Dan Bongino – not Anti Fa, Al Sharpton, or BLM is making that impossible.
Well TZ, if you want a “discussion” on the issue of police brutality, I suggest that you start with the official statistics on crime, the number of enforcement actions and police use of force. If people would look at these statistics, we would not be having any discussion about police brutality or “systemic racism”. Know why? Because they show that black males [~5% of the population] account for almost 50% of the felony crimes and about 70% of the violent crimes in this country. You find that there are 1+ million arrests and other enforcement actions every single day in this country. And, the police use of force statistics show that out of those 365 million enforcement actions about 30 deaths a year are unwarranted. Of those, 2/3 are white and only 1/3 are black. So, where is the police brutality? Where is the systemic racism?
This is a scam which has been perpetrated for decades. It has been used to keep the charge of systemic racism alive in order to retain the support of a specific minority for political purposes as well as make money for a specific grievance industry. Once you understand that, there is no need for discussion.
We need at least one city where the police just stay home. I nominate Seattle as it’s pretty close anyway.
That city will be denied any outside support because the supporters that get the water and electricity to the city are very likely old white guys and therefore racist. So, off with the electricity and water. Next up, internet and cell phones…
By the way, since the new country of chaz located in Seattle is now autonomous, can we stop any US / state government checks from going in?
https://www.lawofficer.com/america-we-are-leaving/
Dan, thank you for all you do. The rule of law has been under attack for a long time. It’s accelerating rapidly because of the impending disclosure of how bad obamagate was/is. The left desperately needs to undermine our law enforcement institutions. They picked the racist angle as the cornerstone of their efforts because they want to project that theme from the street level all the way up to holding obama accountable. Any prosecution of obama administration officials (up to and including obama himself) will be portrayed as racially motivated. The left is pitting raw emotion against logic and reason, as they typically do. When obamagate is prosecuted, I hope we have enough adults in the room to adhere to the rule of law.
Guess who should be making this speech along with Dan?
AG Barr-Boehner.