One of the hardest things I do as FBI Director is call the chiefs and sheriffs in departments around the nation when officers have been killed in the line of duty. I call to express my sorrow and offer the FBI’s help. Officers like Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, two of NYPD’s finest who were gunned down by a madman who thought his ambush would avenge the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. I make far too many calls. And, there are far too many names of fallen officers on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and far too many names etched there each year.
We simply must speak to each other honestly about all these hard truths. In the words of Dr. King, 'We must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.
Let me start by sharing some of my own hard truths. First, all of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty. At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups. It was unfair to the Healy siblings and to countless others like them. It was unfair to too many people.