President Joe Biden defended the police while speaking at the U.S. Capitol, Saturday, saying that being a cop is “harder than it’s ever been.” The event was a memorial service for fallen law enforcement officers and their families.
“We expect everything of you, and it’s beyond the capacity of anyone to meet the total expectations. Being a cop today is one hell of a lot harder than it’s ever been,” Biden said.
Samuel Corum / Getty Images
The President also reflected on the attempted insurrection at the nation’s Capitol, last January, calling the incident an “un-American attack”: “Here nine months ago, your brothers and sisters thwarted an unconstitutional and fundamentally un-American attack on our nation’s values and our votes. Because of you, democracy survived. But only because of you.”
Despite police reform negotiations recently failing to come to fruition, Biden says that investing in “health care, counseling, drug prevention” and more is still necessary: “To support our law enforcement officers requires that we invest in systems that provide adequate health care, counseling, drug prevention, housing, education and other social services in the community, so there is not the discord.”
Check out Biden’s statement on policing from Saturday’s speech below.
[Via]