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One crucial person was missing from the annual ceremony for fallen police officers: The nation’s top law enforcement official.
Attorney General Merrick Garland of Biden’s Department of Justice didn’t show up the 40th Annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service.
491 police officers had died and were honored during the ceremony.
This number is up a staggering 96 percent in 2020 compared to the year before.
135 died in 2019 compared to 264 in 2020, according to the National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum.
Fox News reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland wasn’t there despite FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas attending.
“Garland’s absence wasn’t the only thing that likely sounded a wrong note to police,” Western Journal notes.
Biden’s speech unsuccessfully attempted to pay tribute to fallen law enforcement heroes while also pushing his anti-police legislative agenda.
“Being a cop today is one hell of a lot harder than it’s ever been,” Biden said.
“We expect you to be people ready to stand in the way and take a bullet for us,” he continued.
“We expect you to be able to track down the bad guys,” he said. “We expect you to be the psychologist who talks the couple that are having a violent confrontation together to step back.”
“We expect you to be everything,” Biden said.
Then came the liberal talking points as Biden said, “Under the mournful sound of the bagpipes, we must also hear something else: A call to do better, to do more, to keep you safe, to keep our communities safer.”
“For us to step up, to build trust and respect, and heal the breach we now see in so many communities,” Biden said.
“To recognize that the promise of equal and impartial justice remains a promise but not always a reality for you or others, particularly in low-income communities, too many communities — black and brown,” Biden added.
More from Western Journal:
Moments later, Biden pitched the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the Democrats’ police reform plan that would mostly eliminate qualified immunity — the legal doctrine that protects government employees, including police officers, from civil lawsuits if they had reason to believe their actions were legal and justified — and give broad new powers to the federal government to oversee local police.
Biden used the speech to paint his trillion-dollar-plus American Rescue Plan as a funding vehicle for police. He proposed “we invest again in community policing we know works” — even if we don’t necessarily know that it works and that “community policing” is often seen as existing in an either-or dichotomy with enforcing the law.
And speaking of that, there was also some of the coded language of the defund the police movement slipped into the speech, with Biden positing that “we have to stop asking law enforcement officers to do every single job under the sun.”
“I’m committed to investing in mental health services and mental health professionals who can respond to a mental health crisis alongside you,” Biden said. “You shouldn’t be the one having to talk someone off the edge of the roof. You should have professional help with you. To support our law enforcement officers, it requires that we invest in the systems that provide adequate health care, counseling, drug treatment and prevention, housing, education, and other social services in the community so there is not a discord.”
