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Officer Deaths, Safety, and the Hard Questions · Heroes Behind the Badge

• 0:00
  Bill: every bit worthy of distinction and remembrance as any other death that occurred in 2011, but the reason I highlight that is because if you look at the sort of causal events, something happened in 2025 which resulted in a death in 2025,
• 0:00
  Bill: You strip away those 14, and now you're below 100. That was 97 deaths, total deaths, related to 2025 actions.
• 0:08
  Bill: And as I know you know, but perhaps our audience doesn't, this terminology, this goal, called below 100, has been on law enforcement's radar, it's been on our wish list, our collective wish list, for the better part of 6 or 7 decades. This idea that in any given calendar year, we, I'm saying we, all of us, somehow associated with, connected to law enforcement, could get below 100 deaths
• 0:34
  Bill: below 100 line of duty deaths in any given year. Now, all three of us would argue even 100 is way too many, 90 is way too many. The number should be zero.
• 0:45
  Craig Floyd: How they died, what the trends are, are they good, are they bad, are more officers dying?
• 0:45
  Craig Floyd: This year, in January, Bill, you came out with a report
• 0:49
  Craig Floyd: with some great news on it. I think there was a huge decrease in officer fatalities, and maybe we were at the lowest level in more than 80 years. Could you give us a few of those details, please?
• 1:01
  Bill: Sure, so you're absolutely right, of course, I know you're intimately familiar, but we as the Memorial Fund, by virtue of the screening and vetting and ultimately concluding of every single line of duty death.
• 1:12
  Bill: We really do an extensive background and really research the circumstances about every single officer's death. Ultimately, each one of those cases is vetted and reviewed by something we call the Names Committee.
• 1:23
  Bill: And, assuming the Names Committee concurs, then that officer's name is added to the memorial, a very, very sacred space. So, we have this very valuable data, which you and my predecessors have been collecting for the better part of 30 years.
• 1:37
  Bill: And that data, year over year, really does give us, I think, a very valuable window into the how, where, why men and women in too many circumstances are facing fatal outcomes as they're out there doing this very dangerous work.
• 1:51
  Bill: And so, every single year, we put out a report, a line of duty death annual report, showcasing those instances, the where, how, why men and women in uniform are dying.
• 2:00
  Bill: Most years, the leading contender is firearms fatalities, which means a police officer has been shot and killed. Of course, there's another word for that, murder. I know, again, I'm preaching to the choir, but so many, too many men and women in uniform are being shot and killed by the very citizens that they have sworn to protect.
• 2:17
  Bill: The second leading cause each year, historically, is traffic fatalities, so think officers either in their car responding to a crime in progress.
• 2:25
  Bill: and they themselves become part of an accident, or in many cases, they're outside of their vehicles, perhaps directing traffic, or they might be on a traffic stop and they get sideswiped or struck while they're outside their car. That's another leading contender. Well, the reality is.
• 2:40
  Bill: For 2025, the number of men and women who died in the line of duty we reported as 111.
• 2:47
  Bill: Now, that number by itself is already dramatically lower than it has been in years past. In fact, compared to 2024, it's about a 25% drop, so it's a pretty significant drop. In 2024, we had 148 men and women die in the line of duty, and last year, we had 111. That is already a staggering drop.
• 3:06
  Bill: But one of the points that I have been trying to hammer home to people is that out of that 111, 14 of those deaths were related to 9-11. Men and women who responded to the sites of 9-11, the 9-11 terror attacks, they were then breathing in and exposed to various toxins related to the collapse of the towers.
• 3:26
  Bill: And that, over the years, has led to literally hundreds of men and women who have died related to diseases that they acquired by virtue of their response to those terror attacks. So, that number 111 includes 14 deaths by men and women who responded to those terror attacks and then subsequently got ill and died years later. So, I'm not in any way minimizing those particular 14 deaths. They are…
• 3:51
  Bill: every bit worthy of distinction and remembrance as any other death that occurred in 2011, but the reason I highlight that is because if you look at the sort of causal events, something happened in 2025 which resulted in a death in 2025,
• 4:04
  Bill: below 100 line of duty deaths in any given year. Now, all three of us would argue even 100 is way too many, 90 is way too many. The number should be zero.
• 4:10
  Bill: But for so many years, we have been well above the 100 mark that our goal has been to get below 100. And so, for 2025, you know, on paper, we're not quite there, but we are so tantalizingly close that I think everyone in law enforcement should celebrate the idea that somehow, someway, collectively, perhaps through officer safety and wellness efforts like ours.
• 4:33
  Bill: and many others, thank IACP, thank National Sheriffs. So many in the law enforcement community are thinking about ways to keep our officers safe. For 2025, we breached that goal, and it hasn't been that low since 1943, when we reported 94 total deaths.
• 4:49
  Bill: Wow.
• 4:50
  Bill: Literally, for decades, we have been well above the 100 mark, and for 2025, again, if you look at just the 2025 causal events that resulted in a death, we would be below 100 for the first time in so many years. So this is really encouraging. Obviously, all of us hope that the number… the trend continues well into the future, and perhaps even a couple years from now, we'll be reporting a number far lower than 97, and that is our collective hope.
• 5:15
  Bill: I think that there's cause for a great celebration here.
• 5:17
  Dennis Collins: Absolutely, and you know, we humans always like to do cause and effect, you know? Okay, that's the effect that you just mentioned. What's your guess, Bill? What's your guess? What's going on that's driving this?
• 5:32
  Bill: I think that there are a couple things. I think… I think the top high-level thing is officer safety and wellness, which has become more and more and more ingrained in the law enforcement psyche. I think law enforcement leaders and agencies for many years… I don't want to imply that this is some brand new thing, but I think for many, many years.
• 5:51
  Bill: law enforcement agencies and training academies, like I, helmed for a while.
• 5:55
  Dennis Collins: Right, right.
• 5:56
  Bill: I've been focused on how do we keep our officers safe.
• 5:59
  Bill: that if our officers are not safe, if they themselves are becoming hurt and were in the worst cases killed, they can't then move on to respond to whatever the crime they were trying to resolve or stop in progress. We have to keep our men and women safe. And I think that that has been a mainstay and continuing to gain ground over the last two decades, even in my time. So I think the focus on keeping police officers safe has certainly influenced that number, and any number of programs
• 6:23
  Bill: like Destination Zero on our side, or any of the things that are going on in the constellation of law enforcement organizations thinking about safety, I have to believe that that is, in part, is part of the reason that this number has been trending down, certainly for 2025. There is another…
• 6:40
  Craig Floyd: Bill, I look at the numbers from 2020 and 2021.
• 6:47
  Craig Floyd: All right, just a few years ago, in the year 2020, 437 officers died the line of duty, and the following year, 2021, 677 officers died in the line of duty. That's more than 800 line of duty deaths in a two-year period. We've never seen anything like that. But obviously, a big part of those numbers
• 7:12
  Craig Floyd: was COVID. And I've said on this show many times, and I believe it, that, you know, our officers didn't have the luxury that the rest of us had during those COVID years. They couldn't lock themselves
• 7:24
  Craig Floyd: Behind closed doors and isolate themselves from the disease that was taking so many lives in this country and around the world.
• 7:33
  Craig Floyd: And yet, they were out there exposing themselves to the risks, and ultimately many of them died. I think the numbers I just gave you, over 800 deaths, we ended up with, you know, most of those were COVID deaths. Could you talk about that a little bit? Are we still seeing any related COVID deaths that maybe we missed early on that are now being added to the memorial?
• 7:58
  Bill: Yeah, of course, as I know you know, Craig, every single year, we look at and oftentimes add what we call historical deaths. So, deaths that occurred before the most recent previous calendar year. We have,
• 8:10
  Bill: I think there's even one still that we're adding this year that is related to COVID from previous years, but the reality is, is that we… we followed in PSOB's footsteps, so for those who don't know, the Public Safety Officers Bill, which provides benefits to the families of men and women who die in the line of duty.
• 8:25
  Bill: They cut off
• 8:27
  Bill: COVID-related deaths, last year, so ending calendar year 2024, so we also followed suit, so we have not considered any new deaths related to COVID, and honestly, to my knowledge, we have not even had a case, try to be submitted.
• 8:42
  Bill: Past 2024. So I think… I think we're through… we're definitely through the worst, but I think we're through even the, narrow window of folks,
• 8:50
  Bill: being exposed as a product of their work, and then dying as a result, those deaths seem to have basically minimized, perhaps to zero, so…
• 8:58
  Bill: Obviously, good news for all those in law enforcement, but we have, in fact, stopped considering COVID as a potential line-of-duty death cause.
• 9:05
  Craig Floyd: Good to hear. I, the other thing you alluded to earlier were 9-11 deaths. If you go back to September 11, 2001,
• 9:14
  Craig Floyd: you realize that 72 officers died that day because of the terrorist attacks. It was the deadliest day in law enforcement history. And yet, over the years, because of these recovery workers that spent weeks and months
• 9:28
  Craig Floyd: at the terrorist bomb site where the World Trade Centers used to exist, they were breathing in these toxins, and many of them did die. I don't want to put you on the spot, do you? But it's hundreds, right? Hundreds of recovery workers?
• 9:43
  Bill: It's well over 500 at this point. It's obviously far too many, but…
• 9:48
  Bill: I think really gives you a sense of the size and scope of how many people in public safety responded to assist with the recovery efforts there, and how
• 9:59
  Bill: how impactful that event was, not just psychologically, but physically. The lingering effects of being exposed to those carcinogens, continues to play… just… it wreaks havoc, particularly in and around the New Jersey and New York area.
• 10:13
  Bill: Where so many now, are really, really grappling with, the effects of those long-term illnesses, and the reality is, is that every single year, we add upwards of a dozen or more men and women who have had their lives cut short by virtue of their response, and then, getting these very unique illnesses. And so.
• 10:31
  Bill: Our responsibility here at the memorial, as I know you know, is to help remember them, that their deaths and their lives being cut short is every bit as worthy as the, you know, the officer responding in a traffic accident and gets sideswiped. That they have had their lives cut short, and by virtue of that, they are certainly worthy of recognition.
• 10:51
  Craig Floyd: I want to talk about traffic-related deaths. 34, last year that you all reported, that was down 23%. One of my pet peeves, I had a couple of them related to traffic safety, and PG County.
• 11:07
  Craig Floyd: Has lost a number of officers in traffic-related,
• 11:11
  Bill: Too many.
• 11:11
  Craig Floyd: deaths, and you all, I think, did a great job of responding to that and coming up with some policies that were going to hopefully make it safer for your officers. One of my pet peeves is, one, not enough driver training.
• 11:25
  Craig Floyd: All right, high-speed driver training. We give our officers all this firearms training. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of officers will never fire their gun in the line of duty in their entire 20, 30-year career, and yet every officer at one point or in time is going to be behind the wheel of their vehicle.
• 11:45
  Craig Floyd: responding to an emergency at a high rate of speed, or chasing a fleeing felon. We need to do better in that area, and I'm glad to see that number down. The other thing that has always bothered me is the number of officers that don't wear their seatbelts.
• 12:01
  Craig Floyd: And they seem to have, you know, a lot of valid reasons for it.
• 12:05
  Craig Floyd: I've never been a police officer, I've never had to respond to an emergency or to a shooting in progress, so I don't fully appreciate it, perhaps, but in your experience, and now at the Memorial Fund, are we still seeing that as a problem, that officers dying in auto crashes are not wearing their seatbelts?
• 12:25
  Bill: Well, unfortunately, we are still seeing that, you know, you very deftly handled describing that, but I will poke a hole in your commentary and say my strongest belief is there are no valid reasons for a police officer not to have his or her seatbelt on.
• 12:40
  Craig Floyd: I actually just had a conversation about this with Gordon Graham, who you probably both know, who's a sort of risk manager extraordinaire and an incredible speaker.
• 12:48
  Bill: But the reality is, is that for all of the reasons that police officers might concoct as a potential reason that they should not have their seatbelt on, they are all bluff and blunder, they're completely meaningless, and to whatever degree some partial
• 13:04
  Bill: piece of a split second you might save by not having to undo your seatbelt. First of all, I can get out of my car just as fast with the seatbelt on than I can with it off.
• 13:12
  Bill: It's… it's… once you've built it into your muscle memory, it's a complete non-starter to say somehow you… that split second, you're going to die or need to respond. But the reality is, is that you are far more likely to die in a car accident without your seatbelt on than almost any other cause, in the profession.
• 13:27
  Bill: And every single year, we continue to have line of duty deaths related to traffic accidents, and the officer not wearing his or her seatbelt.
• 13:34
  Bill: If somehow I could wave a magic wand and change just one thing in law enforcement, that would probably be it. That, you know, every man and woman in uniform should be wearing their seatbelt. You reference my police department, Prince George's County Police Department. You're absolutely right.
• 13:49
  Bill: Out of those 16 deaths, I think about half of them were traffic accidents, and some of those were our very own men and women not have… wearing their seatbelt, and they may well have survived if they had their seatbelt on.
• 14:00
  Bill: And one of the things that my, then-Chief, Hank Stawinski, and Assistant Chief Kevin Davis did, who's now the Chief of Fairfax County.
• 14:07
  Bill: They implemented a program called Arrive Alive, and they forced every single police officer on the agency to go to the evidence bay during their annual in-service training and look, physically look at the car where one of our members had died. Look at the complete, total devastation and wreckage of that car.
• 14:24
  Bill: And then think about the loss of that particular officer who had died in the car, and the half a dozen others who he had lost in the intervening years. All that every single person on the police department knew.
• 14:36
  Bill: And then they put this sticker, they forced everyone to put a sticker on their glove box. Even the, detective cars that were sort of sometimes undercover, and there was much gnashing of teeth and kvetching about, oh, sometimes I have, informants in here, I don't want them to know that I'm a police, or they don't want people to know the police, and the chief said, listen, our number one priority is to save police lives. You are going to put this sticker on your glove box. It was this big sticker that said.
• 15:01
  Bill: I have a lie, with a picture of a seatbelt on.
• 15:04
  Bill: That… that institutional change, that forcing men and women to grapple with and recognize the very real cost of not wearing your seatbelt had an immediate and long-lasting impact. I don't think the Prince George’s County Police Department's lost another officer since in terms of not having their seatbelt on.
• 15:19
  Bill: And, you know, one of the things Gordon Graham said, he told me that he knew the CEO at some point of UPS, and UPS's policy was, that if the driver of a UPS truck did not have their seatbelt on while they were in… not even driving, while they were in the car and the thing was running, it was immediately firing a fence. And Gordon's belief is, is that if we instituted the same level of scrutiny
• 15:43
  Bill: For men and women in uniform patrolling our roads, that that would save literally hundreds and hundreds of lives over the course of any period of time.
• 15:52
  Bill: So, I'm a big fan of Gordon's and, you know, every single one of those deaths. It's tragic, and the reality is, I know instinctively that the men and women who are rapidly responding to crimes, who are getting to the scene of something chaotic, and they want to get out, and they want to help, I'm not in any way disparaging them. I know that what they are doing is very heroic, very tough, very dangerous work, and I know they have the best of intentions.
• 16:17
  Bill: But this one thing, you must, you should, not just should, you must wear your seatbelt to help save your lives, and prevent your peers, and your family, and your friends, and your community from suffering what might be a needless officer death.
• 16:31
  Dennis Collins: Well, that's well said. We oughta… we oughta grab that clip and play that for every police department in the U.S. That's… that's very inspirational.
• 16:40
  Craig Floyd: message needs to go out there. You know, by the way, I want to get one other message to the audience. You're on the road, driving down the highway, and you see an emergency vehicle on the side of the road. Too many officers have been struck and killed.
• 16:56
  Craig Floyd: The numbers the last few years have been much higher than I ever remember. And we have a law in place. Move over and slow down when you see an emergency vehicle on the side of the roadway. I hope that that law is helping to save lives, but I worry that the numbers are still much higher than I think any of us would like to see.
• 17:15
  Craig Floyd: Let me turn to another subject that's getting a lot of attention. Our organization, Citizens Behind the Badge, has been very active and very aggressive about dealing with the mental health of officers, right? We know that
• 17:30
  Craig Floyd: The job is stressful. We know that law enforcement officers experience 400 to 600 traumatic events during their 20, 30-year career. The average person, maybe 2 or 3 traumatic events. The rate of suicide among police officers is 54% higher
• 17:49
  Craig Floyd: than the average public. I know this is an area that the Memorial Fund has been involved in and has been a leader in for many years, trying to deal with the stress of the job and to strengthen and bolster the mental health of our officers, just as they do with the physical threats. A lot of attention has been focused on so many officers dying.
• 18:13
  Craig Floyd: by suicide. I'm just wondering what the Memorial Fund is doing to try to reduce that number, and are we ever going to see suicide-related deaths on the memorial? This is something, when we established our original policy.
• 18:29
  Craig Floyd: we said, you know, suicide deaths would not be honored on the memorial. Now I know there seems to be
• 18:36
  Craig Floyd: More, you know, a growing
• 18:40
  Craig Floyd: momentum toward maybe recognizing suicide deaths. Federal death benefits, I think, are now in play for officers who die by suicide, their families. Help me understand what's going on in that area right now.
• 18:54
  Bill: Sure. Well, to start the first part of your question, we, the Memorial Fund, through our Officer Safety and Wellness Pillar, as you talked about.
• 19:01
  Bill: have long focused on the mental health, the mental stability of the men and women in uniform, and certainly all of us on our team and in the broad constellation of everyone else I've ever talked to recognize those traumatic events that you talked about do have an impact on an officer's psyche and mental well-being. So how can agencies become cognizant of, aware of, how can they train their first-line supervisors, particularly to be on the
• 19:26
  Bill: look out for signs or symptoms of some sort of mental distress. How can we get men and women in uniform the help that they otherwise might need? How do we strip away the lingering stigma of asking for mental health? Now, I do think that has changed dramatically over the 30 years that I've been associated with law enforcement, but
• 19:43
  Bill: to whatever degree that's an influencing factor. How can we…
• 19:46
  Bill: First, recognize that there is something going on. Two, implore the men and women who are doing this job and their supervisors to recognize those signs and seek help, and then third, go out and get the help that you otherwise need. Those have been the tentpole thing, so…
• 20:01
  Bill: We are one among many who are trying to highlight mental health and trying to do the work there to get people educated. We work under a grant right now called SafeLeo, which is focused entirely on public safety suicides.
• 20:14
  Bill: And so, to whatever degree we are having an impact there, we are one among many, and I do think that we are saving lives, but we clearly aren't saving enough. The number is still way too high.
• 20:24
  Bill: So, for that part, I hope that we are part of the solution, and it continues to need work in the years ahead. The second part of your question is, is we, the Memorial Fund, is there an opportunity for us to recognize those deaths in some official way, and perhaps add the names of those men and women to the wall alongside their peers?
• 20:42
  Bill: That has been a continuing conversation with the Memorial Fund Board. A little more than a year ago, they actually did vote to amend our criteria, which would have allowed for a number of suicides to at least be considered for inclusion on the memorial.
• 20:56
  Bill: And then over the course of the next year, so through much of 2025, we started to get a handful of cases. I think we have a total of 12 right now.
• 21:05
  Bill: And as we… I say we, it's not me individually, but we collectively, with some board support, were examining each of these cases, and at every single turn, some part of a case would cause us to ask a question that we didn't necessarily have the answer to. It was a very, very complicated
• 21:23
  Bill: set of criteria to match against. And so, what the board wants is to find a way to, theoretically
• 21:33
  Bill: Allow some number of suicides to be on the wall, but how do we as an organization vet those cases in such a way that, one, is not traumatic back again to the family as we ask a variety of questions, but two, ensures
• 21:45
  Bill: that any officer's name who lands on the memorial wall, which you and I both know is very sacred, it has every distinction and is worthy of being included amongst those peers.
• 21:55
  Bill: So, you know, I know you don't necessarily want to get into the weeds, but let me just give you one topical example.
• 22:01
  Bill: let's say a police officer, and we are following, to some degree, the loose criteria set by PSOB, again, Police, Public Safety Officers Benefits Bill. You are absolutely right, families are now, if they can show a traumatic event being a part of the equation as to how an officer ultimately took their own life, then they may be entitled to benefits. So we are following their loose criteria, but ours, as was approved last year and now has been paused.
• 22:26
  Bill: as the board has decided to go back and sort of further study the issue. Let's say an officer, and this is completely hypothetical, I'm not pulling any specific thing, let's say a younger Bill Alexander has been to any number of traumatic events, I've seen deaths, I've seen injury, I've seen kids run over.
• 22:42
  Bill: And ultimately, I take my own life. And my family's belief is, and the agency's belief is, oh, Bill was really suffering by virtue of his traumatic exposure, and we believe, that his death is directly related to that, we'd like him to be honored. But then, during the course of the death investigation, it comes to find out that, I have become addicted to drugs, that I've been stealing drugs out of the evidence
• 23:07
  Bill: room, and I was just days away from being indicted on some sort of drug-related theft charge.
• 23:14
  Bill: So, how do we balance that? Yes, Bill Alexander was responding to any number of calls, yes, I was exposed to any number of traumas, and yes, maybe that was a factor, one among many.
• 23:24
  Bill: That ultimately led to me having some sort of mental…
• 23:27
  Bill: crises that then led me to take my own life, but how do we balance that against potential other actions by the police officer? How do we deal with divorces, and infidelity, and bad finances, and bankruptcies, and gambling, and the various addictions, and possible criminal elements of an officer's behavior? How do we balance those against the exposed trauma? So, again, I'm not pulling from any
• 23:51
  Bill: specific case. I'm just trying to give the audience a sense of
• 23:55
  Bill: I think many in the audience have this idea of, oh, a typical Bill Alexander for 25 years was almost certainly exposed to any number of traumas, and of course that had an impact on his mental health. I agree. The question then is.
• 24:09
  Bill: what is sort of… can we show what the actual causal factor was in the officer's death that is worthy of remembrance for all time? And not having an officer's name on the wall who maybe, was
• 24:22
  Bill: dabbling in the gray, or just outright involved in some level of criminal activity, which might have been the heavier of the influencing factors. There's another case, you're probably familiar with Souter.
• 24:33
  Bill: In Baltimore, a homicide detective,
• 24:37
  Bill: he was shot and killed. The initial analysis showed that he was murdered and that some perpetrator had shot and killed him. Afterwards, there continues to be an open question as to whether or not he shot himself, as it was learned that he was days away from being indicted or being called in, in terms of questioning
• 24:54
  Bill: For some sort of ongoing, alleged, bad actors in Baltimore. And so that is… ironically, Suter's name is on the wall right now. It's because his case was submitted as a line of duty death, and that he had been murdered and shot and killed.
• 25:09
  Bill: But that is the kind of example
• 25:11
  Bill: let's say that we were able to prove definitively that he died by his own hand. Almost certainly Suter was exposed to any number of traumas by virtue of his homicide work. Would we have included that with the fact that he was also very close to, or seemingly was close to, being involved in some sort of criminal investigation against himself? It's a…
• 25:31
  Bill: It's a very complicated, nuanced, layered.
• 25:35
  Bill: topic, and it causes a lot of emotional, trauma to everyone who's associated with this, particularly the families of men and women who've died by suicide. I completely understand that. I'm not trying to put my thumb on the scale, but I…
• 25:47
  Bill: as the CEO, and to some degree, the mouthpiece of the organization, I try to give people a sense that every single one of these cases is very, very complicated, and it takes… it's going to take us to revise our criteria to some degree to figure out how can we tease out the best parts of an officer's life, and is this officer worthy of recognition? How do we do that in a way that keeps the memorial
• 26:10
  Bill: Safe and serene, and that every single name on there is worthy of being included.
• 26:15
  Dennis Collins: We've had a lot of conversations about this, but I'll tell you, Bill, that's about the clearest explanation I've ever heard. You really helped me, at least, I think Craig too, understand the complexity of this. Because, you know, there's at least two sides to that coin.
• 26:32
  Dennis Collins: And you just… you just explained it better than anyone I've ever heard, so I appreciate that.
• 26:38
  Bill: Well, as another example, I won't tell you who told me this, but there… the opinions in law enforcement, I have talked to any number of people, run the gamut. There are those in law enforcement who feel full stop that if you die by suicide, you should not be.
• 26:52
  Dennis Collins: That's true.
• 26:52
  Bill: on the memorial. There are those people.
• 26:54
  Dennis Collins: Absolutely.
• 26:54
  Bill: There… there are some people… I have heard someone of a very high position in the law enforcement agency who feels like that if I, Bill Alexander.
• 27:04
  Bill: was suffering from mental trauma that, to some degree, could be linked to my work, and I drove home, and shot my kids, and then shot my spouse, and then took my own life.
• 27:14
  Bill: even that officer should still be considered for inclusion, if you could otherwise link the mental trauma to some sort of work-related thing. So, again, I'm not… I'm not trying to take a position there, I'm just trying to say there is a wide gamut of what people in this community, this broader law enforcement community, feel like is appropriate, and we are trying to tease through these
• 27:35
  Bill: Countless opinions, to come up with what hopefully everyone will view as a correct and appropriate policy.
• 27:41
  Dennis Collins: by far, not an easy task, but clearly, you're tackling it, and I guess that's what we need done, is someone at your level to tackle it, and it sounds like you're doing that. So, you know, Bill, we could go on and on. We're running out of time. We don't want to impose any more on your time, but I got.
• 27:53
  Dennis Collins: So I can't help but take this moment. We have, sitting here before us, the founding CEO emeritus of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, and the current sitting CEO. What do you all have to say to each other? Craig, what do you have to say to Bill?
• 28:12
  Craig Floyd: Well, as I said earlier, I am so proud of the work he is doing in leading the memorial Fund in making sure the memorial is well taken care of.
• 28:25
  Craig Floyd: continuing so many of the programs that we started way back when. Destination Zero, which promotes officer safety and wellness, certainly the museum. We intended that to be the place where we could have important discussions between police and the general public.
• 28:44
  Craig Floyd: How can we do better in law enforcement? How can the community
• 28:49
  Craig Floyd: better support the men and women serving their communities. And certainly, when the Defund the Police movement started way back in 2020, I think the importance of that museum and the importance of those kinds of discussions and public programs became more important than ever, and I'm so glad that Bill Alexander is leading the way.
• 29:11
  Dennis Collins: Okay, Bill, it's your turn. What do you have to say to Craig Floyd?
• 29:15
  Bill: That was very kind, Greg. Well, the reality is that, you know, I, for my part, individually, as a police officer who spent my entire adult life in and around the law enforcement profession, first in the Air Force, and then later with the Prince George’s County Police Department.
• 29:29
  Bill: I, and certainly now as the CEO of this organization, very humbly, very humbled to play even a small part in the continuing story that Craig started.
• 29:37
  Bill: I am more than emotionally grateful to one Craig Floyd, because certainly now, I really understand the magnitude of what Craig helped undertake. So, in 1984, there is an idea, there's the seed of an idea, that we should have a National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
• 29:54
  Bill: Without Craig Floyd, I am convinced that there would not be a Memorial today. So, as a member of this profession, as a prior member of this profession, I am so incredibly grateful to Craig, and of course many others, the donors, the contributors, the people who were behind the scenes helping to push this forward, but again, I'm convinced if you roll back the clock, and you remove Craig Floyd from this equation.
• 30:17
  Bill: I am not convinced that there would be a memorial today. And by virtue of there being a memorial, first of all, I stand in awe. Literal, I stand in awe of what Craig has helped create and helped
• 30:28
  Bill: build here, but I'm also so incredibly grateful, not just as a member of law enforcement, but I think as a citizen of this country, to say thank you to Craig for everything you have done and are doing to help celebrate the profession, everything you have done to help celebrate and remember the men and women who died in the line of duty, everything you have done to help make this incredibly sacred, special place possible, because without you, I'm not sure it would ever have existed.
• 30:53
  Dennis Collins: Bill, those are… those are great words, and I happen to agree with you. I mean, he has spent his adult life supporting and honoring law enforcement, and you now are carrying the torch, and I must say, you are an excellent spokesperson on behalf of the National Law Enforcement Memorial.
• 31:12
  Bill: Well, Dennis, I'll buy you lunch any day of the week for that very kind compliment.
• 31:16
  Dennis Collins: I'll take you up on that, too.
• 31:18
  Bill: Let's do it.
• 31:19
  Dennis Collins: Absolutely. Well, again, I want to thank you for being our guest. I also want to thank our listeners. You guys make this podcast possible. If you liked anything Bill Alexander had to say today, would you do us a favor? Subscribe.
• 31:34
  Dennis Collins: like?
• 31:35
  Dennis Collins: Follow, you know how to do that, those little buttons, okay? Why does that help? That shows us that you care, that you support the work we're doing on Heroes Behind the Badge. It also gives you access to all new episodes. When we release a new episode, you want to be the first to know? Subscribe.
• 31:54
  Dennis Collins: Follow, like. Most important, make comments. Maybe you heard something you liked today, maybe you heard something you disagreed with today, whatever. We love and read and respond to your comments. So make comments. We want to hear them. We love to hear them.
• 32:08
  Dennis Collins: is produced and sponsored by Citizens Behind the Badge, the leading voice of the American people in support of the men and women of law enforcement.
• 32:17
  Dennis Collins: You can reach us at citizensbehindTheBadge.org, that's citizensbehindTheBadge.org.
• 32:24
  Dennis Collins: Again, you can get the whole story not only on this podcast and see all of our episodes, but you get the whole story on why we exist, what our mission is, and the progress we have made in supporting the men and women of law enforcement. That's all for this episode. Thanks again, Bill Alexander. Thanks, Craig Floyd. We'll see you next time on Heroes Behind the Badge.