WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, the House Committee on Homeland Security convened a hearing to examine how increasingly hostile anti-law enforcement rhetoric is contributing to the rise in threats and targeted attacks against law enforcement officers and personnel. 
 
Michael Hughes, executive director at Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association; Jonathan Thompson, executive director and chief executive officer at National Sheriffs’ Association; Patrick Yoes, national president at Fraternal Order of Police; and Daniel Hodges, law enforcement officer at D.C. Metropolitan Police Department provided witness testimony.
 
During the hearing, witnesses detailed the real-world impacts of doxing and calls for violence against law enforcement and their families on officer morale, operational security, and recruitment, underscoring how these growing challenges have created gaps that threaten public safety and undermine law enforcement’s homeland security mission. Members and witnesses urged elected officials to support state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies as they confront the evolving threat landscape and protect our communities.

In his opening statement, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Andrew R. Garbarino (R-NY) discussed the impacts of anti-law enforcement sentiment on operational effectiveness and reaffirmed his commitment to providing officers and agents with the resources and support they need to carry out their missions:

“Law enforcement officers work tirelessly on behalf of our communities and the situations they face on a daily basis take a heavy toll on their mental health even in the best of times. In this current environment of increased hostility and violence, those challenges are amplified. Ensuring our officers have the resources and support they need to protect their personal wellbeing has been a longstanding priority for me and many of my colleagues on this committee.” 
 
“When inflammatory rhetoric leads to actions that endanger officers’ lives, we enter dangerous territory. Rising hostility erodes morale, fuels burnout, and hinders recruitment and retention for law enforcement. Ultimately that weakens public safety and national security harming the very communities activists claim to defend.”
 
“Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, but the line between criticism and outright incitement is growing thinner, and too often that line is being crossed. Our law enforcement officers play an essential role in upholding the rule of law, protecting national security, supporting our state and local partners, and keeping the American public safe. Yet when anyone seeks to portray law enforcement as enemies of the people, it signals that something is terribly wrong.”

Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) outlined how anti-law enforcement statements from elected officials have endangered law enforcement officers and personnel and asked Mr. Yoes about his experience: 

“Governor Pritzker claimed the country is becoming Nazi Germany because ICE is grabbing people off the street and disappearing them… Governor Walz smeared ICE agents, says modern-day Gestapo. Chicago Mayor Johnson accused secret police of terrorizing our community… Are these the statements that you are referring to, and do these statements in fact place law enforcement officers lives in jeopardy?” 
 
Mr. Yoes testified:
 
“Absolutely, these and more. And I will say that you don’t get to throw fuel on a fire and curse the very flames that you create.” 

Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and AccountabilityChairman Josh Brecheen (R-OK) asked how to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights while still identifying those inciting violence in our communities, to which Mr. Hughes testified:
 
“What we need to be doing is looking at the social media issues. I think that’s a huge part of what’s going on, and looking at what laws need to be passed, about what the right balance is, and that’s what this body can and should be working on as well to help in that arena.”  

Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence Chairman August Pfluger (R-TX) asked how public officials who have called for doxing law enforcement have put their lives at risk, to which Mr. Hughes testified: 
 
“Doxing, as we know, has become a huge problem, and is one of the reasons that the face coverings are being used now. It really has opened up a lot of law enforcements and their families to threats, and that is a problem.”
 
“Besides doxing, we use face coverings just for operational purposes, especially when we did execution of warrants and things like that, for protection, for protection. So that would be in a particular operational setting.” 

Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Chairman Andy Ogles (R-TN) asked the witnesses to describe how elected officials’ anti-law enforcement rhetoric affects the lives of officers and agents, to which Mr. Hughes testified: 
 
“What do we say when we’re thanked for things? Usually, I’m just doing my job. And those of us who aren’t police officers, we know somebody or have family members, and we want them to be protected. Our family to be protected. Our mothers, fathers, spouses, children. And when we get the anti-law enforcement rhetoric fueling the violence, that’s unacceptable.”
 
“And I think that we could all agree on that basic premise that any anti–law enforcement rhetoric should be bad because we are the ones that are out there enforcing the laws, the laws that Congress makes and the laws that are on the books, and we are charged with abiding by the rule of law and executing our duties and our oath to uphold the rule of law. And we are just in an environment that is so toxic.” 

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) asked what role sheriffs play in anti-gang terrorism task forces, to which Mr. Thompson testified:
 
“Crime in this country has changed. It’s much more sophisticated than it’s ever been. The cartels have more money, more time, more interest in doing what they do. That’s why, in my estimation, I think the president did do the right thing by designating the cartels as terrorist groups.”
 
“I think we all need to recognize that with the sophistication and the breadth and absolute indoctrination into our country of these cartels, we have to do things differently. We have to do them vastly different. We need a greater sense of urgency on cybersecurity.”
 
“I think we have to recognize that with these task forces are going to come some pain, some growing pains and some changes… Whether it’s a small agency in the rural part of the country or a large agency, we’re going to have to be a little bit more flexible as we look at things.” 

Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology ChairmanDale Strong (R-AL) asked what the witnesses think is driving the surge of violence towards law enforcement and how it has affected the lives of officers, to which Mr. Hughes testified:
 
“What is really alarming, I think, to a lot of us is the normalization of this anti-rhetoric. We have to understand that police officers are enforcing the laws. They’re enforcing the laws that this body makes and that the elected officials make.”

“And when we have that anti-rhetoric on law enforcement officers, it just fuels the fire. A lot of it is social media. We see social media that puts out information that isn’t necessarily true all the time, and it just fuels the flames, and it makes the violence against police officers seem normal. It’s not right. It’s against the law, and we need to do something about it.”

Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) asked how the rise in threats towards law enforcement is impacting recruitment and retention, to which Mr. Yoes testified:
 
“We have a retention and recruiting problem, because the best recruiters we have are the people that are law enforcement officers who recognize somebody within a community and say, you have the qualities that we need within our community. That’s how they got into law enforcement… They got in because of a personal connection of somebody it reached out to. We’ve made our job so less appealing to people that we’re dealing with a problem. You can’t hire an officer today and expect them to be an effective officer for probably five-six years. So, every time we have somebody walking out the door, know that it is not easy to fill that position.” 

Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO)detailed his personal experience as a police officer and asked how the treatment of law enforcement has impacted morale:  

“I was a cop for 10 years in the Denver Metro area… I buried two colleagues in my agency, Gordon Beesley, who was assassinated by an individual who was radicalized against law enforcement by anti-police rhetoric from elected leaders, shot in the back of the head, murdered… I buried Dillon Vakoff, one of my friends who was in my riot squad at my agency, gunned down responding to a family disturbance call, Air Force veteran.”  
 
“When cops are handcuffed, when political rhetoric incites violence, it’s the cops who suffer. And not only is it the cops who suffer, it’s the low-income and the minority communities that suffer… Cops experience the physical, mental, moral and emotional injuries of this job, and all of those things are made worse as a result of anti-law-enforcement rhetoric.” 
 
Mr. Yoes testified:
 
“We’re human beings. We’re just average people asked to do, occasionally, some extraordinary things, and it has its toll on law enforcement. There’s no question. So, when you compound all of this together, it makes our job more and more difficult.”
 
“We lose more officers every year by their own hands than we do to police action. And that’s the reality of it. That’s where we live, and we need to recognize that we’re damaging people. When we damage someone in a protection of communities, we have a moral and fiduciary responsibility to fix them.”

###