WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) spoke on the Senate floor following the killing of Concord Police Officer Jason Shuping in the line of duty on Wednesday night, the second North Carolina police officer to be shot and killed over the last week. Senator Tillis urged his colleagues to pass the Protect and Serve Act, legislation he introduced that would create federal penalties for individuals who deliberately target local, state, or federal law enforcement officers with violence.
Watch a video of the speech here.
Transcript:
Three days ago, I came to the Senate floor and spoke in honor of the life of Tyler Herndon, a Mount Holly North Carolina police officer who lost his life just days before his 26th birthday last week. He was laid to rest this week. Now five days after his murder and three days after my remarks, I'm devastated to report another officer in North Carolina has lost his life in the line of duty.
Wednesday night, the Concord Police Department received a call about a crashed abandoned car on I-85 just outside of Charlotte. Responding officers were alerted that the suspect had attempted to steal a woman's car while she was still in it. Officers Jason Shuping and Kaleb Robinson tracked and identified the suspect on foot. As they approached the suspect, he pulled out a handgun, and he shot both of these brave officers. Tragically, Officer Shuping died at the scene. Thankfully Officer Robinson is recovering at the hospital.
Officer Shuping was just twenty-five years old, the same age as the officer we memorialized this week, Tyler Herndon. I'm just devastated by this. These brave officers had begun their careers in law enforcement and had nowhere to go but up. They were serving our community, and they were doing it with honor.
We talk a lot about the sacrifice given by law enforcement officers who, day in and day out, serve our community and put themselves in harm's way. It's dispiriting to think that these fallen officers at the very beginning of their careers have already made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of public safety and community safety.
Families in North Carolina, and in each of our states, are about to endure their first Christmas without their loved ones. We owe so much to these families whose parents, spouses, siblings, children, and then grandchildren have given everything in the line of duty.
On Tuesday, when I spoke on Officer Herndon, I said that in the next Congress I would be moving forward with the Protect and Serve Act again. This Act increases penalties for people who murder or assault police officers, but in light of another police officer's death, the second one in a week in North Carolina and in the suburbs just around the corner from where I live, I think we have to elevate the discussion now and send a very clear message to those that would harm police officers that if you do, there will be dire consequences to pay for it.
We owe it to the police officers to let them know that Congress cares about them and that we should send this message. This is a simple bill. It only focuses on those who are so brazen that they would murder a police officer in the line of duty, assault them, ambushed them, all the things you've seen. There have been 48 murders this year alone.
The best thing that we can do is just pass this commonsense legislation, send a message to these people who are taking away the men and women who serve in our communities.
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