By Barbara Schwartz

Dark days lie ahead for law enforcement. LE will continue to be blamed for society’s ills and mistakes. Why? Because LE is the arm of government that is out on the streets interfacing with the public on a daily basis. No other government agency has that task or, more importantly, that duty.

LE will continue to be criticized. Officers will be thrown under the bus and prosecuted for performing their lawful duties. The Capitol police will be scrutinized for years to come.

Violent crime is on the rise in our cities. That is a fact. Calls for reforming, defunding, and de-militarizing police, and the constant push for de-escalation, will only result in more violence; and more of what we experienced at the Capitol last week and during protests throughout the nation last year.

Without consequences, violence will reign its terror on us all.

The lesson learned on January 6th, and I hope the Representatives and Senators who feared for their life that day are paying attention to the lesson, is that what stands between violent crime and innocent people are the police.  

Stripping away the tools and techniques needed by police to function and carry out their lawful duties will not strengthen the barrier against violent crime.

Calls for criminal justice reform will continue. Police will be asked to do more with less—less resources and less personnel.

The job of law enforcement will get increasingly harder and tougher. What will climb with the crime statistics is the line of duty death toll.

What won’t change is that brave individuals will continue to rise to the task and be the barrier between violent crime and innocent citizens. To those brave souls, to the police officers who patrol our great land, we owe a debt of gratitude, acclaim, and adulation for their courage and resolve. 

Copyright©2021 Barbara A. Schwartz  All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any manner without the expressed written consent of the author.

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