The Country’s Largest Police Union, Which Repeatedly Endorsed Trump, Is Dismayed by His Capitol Riot Pardons
The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which supported President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, 2020, and 2024, yesterday criticized his blanket pardon for people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The FOP, the country’s largest police union, is troubled by the president’s clemency for Trump supporters who assaulted police officers while expressing their outrage at a supposedly stolen election.
“Crimes against law enforcement are not just attacks on individuals or public safety,” the FOP said in a joint statement with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). “They are attacks on society and undermine the rule of law. Allowing those convicted of these crimes to be released early diminishes accountability and devalues the sacrifices made by courageous law enforcement officers and their families. When perpetrators of crimes, especially serious crimes, are not held fully accountable, it sends a dangerous message that the consequences for attacking law enforcement are not severe, potentially emboldening others to commit similar acts of violence.”
Spreading the blame around, the FOP and the IACP roped former President Joe Biden into their critique of misguided clemency for people convicted of violence against police officers. The organizations cited “long standing and positive relationships with both President Trump and President Biden,” thanking them for “their support of the policing profession.” But they added that they are “deeply discouraged by the recent pardons and commutations granted by both the Biden and Trump Administrations to individuals convicted of killing or assaulting law enforcement officers.”
The groups’ beef with Biden presumably involves his last-minute commutation for Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who was convicted of murdering two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Peltier, who is now 80 and ailing, served half a century for those crimes before Biden commuted his life sentence to home confinement on Monday.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray described Peltier as “a remorseless killer” in a letter urging Biden to keep him in prison. But Biden noted that “Tribal Nations, Nobel Peace laureates, former law enforcement officials (including the former U.S. Attorney whose office oversaw Mr. Peltier’s prosecution and appeal), dozens of lawmakers, and human rights organizations strongly support granting Mr. Peltier clemency, citing his advanced age, illness
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