The president is not kidding around.
The headline at Newsmax was this: “Trump Seeks Death Penalty for Firefighter, Cop Killers.”
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Newsmax reported:
President Donald Trump said Thursday he wants the death penalty for anyone who murders a firefighter in the line of duty, expanding his administration’s tough-on-crime push to protect first responders and impose the harshest punishment on those who kill police officers.
Speaking at a White House Rose Garden luncheon honoring firefighters and first responders, Trump said he had directed the Justice Department to pursue capital punishment against those who deliberately kill firefighters or law enforcement officers.
“We’re bringing the death penalty back for anybody that kills a police officer, by the way, or anybody in law enforcement,” Trump declared.
….The president extended that demand to firefighters, saying he had instructed the Justice Department to seek the death penalty for “anybody that murders a firefighter going up a ladder.”
Trump’s remarks underscored his administration’s determination to strengthen protections for emergency personnel who risk their lives to protect Americans.”
Safe to say, in a perfect, peaceful world where the laws of the states and the nation were respected, there would be no one out there murdering firefighters or police officers. (Or for that matter, anybody else!)
But alas, Americans (not to mention everybody else) do not live in a perfect, peaceful world. Americans who serve as firefighters can be — and too frequently are — targeted as they do their jobs of keeping their fellow citizens safe.
Scroll around the Internet, and one finds a headline like the following from CNN: “These are the Minnesota officers and firefighter killed while responding to a domestic incident.”
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The CNN report in 2024 said this:
A community is in mourning Monday, a day after two police officers and a firefighter were fatally shot in Burnsville, Minnesota, while responding to a domestic incident.
Officials identified the three men as officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27 years old, and 40-year-old firefighter-paramedic Adam Finseth.
“We’re hurting. Today, three members of our team made the ultimate sacrifice for this community,” Burnsville Police Chief Tanya Schwartz said at a news conference Sunday. “They are heroes.”
Heroes indeed.
Decidedly not to be forgotten is the murder of firefighter Corey Comperatore. He was killed while attending, of all things, a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. Where a would-be assassin had targeted then-candidate Trump, killing Comperatore in the process. In that case, the killer, one aptly named Thomas Matthew Crooks, was quickly himself killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper team. As it were, Crooks received the death penalty on the spot.
The hard fact in today’s world is that there are crazy people out there. Crazy and obsessed with one thing or another that has some of them kill police officers and firefighters.
And the president is decidedly correct to insist that there be a death penalty not just for police officers but for “anybody that murders a firefighter going up a ladder.”
All of which is to say, the president’s message is crystal clear. If anyone out there murders a police officer or firefighter — the people who are risking their lives to protect their fellow citizens — then they will pay the ultimate price for doing so.
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And should.
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