Transcript: JD Vance Remarks at the National Peace Officer’s Memorial Service – The Singju Post

Editor’s Notes: In this address, Vice President JD Vance honors the ultimate sacrifice made by fallen law enforcement officers at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service. Speaking directly to the grieving families and officers in attendance, Vance expresses a nation’s profound gratitude and sorrow for their immense losses. He opens his remarks with a poignant reference to the book of Isaiah, comparing the selflessness of the prophet to the “Send me” spirit of America’s law enforcement community. Ultimately, the speech serves as a solemn tribute to the fallen while reinforcing the administration’s commitment to protecting and supporting those who hold the line between order and chaos. (May 15, 2026)

TRANSCRIPT:

Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks

JD VANCE: Thank you all, thank you. First of all, what an amazing program, and it’s such an honor to be back here. I was here quite literally a year to the day, and being the Vice President of the United States is the coolest job imaginable. But of all the amazing things I get to do, getting to be here to speak to the families of the fallen and our brave law enforcement officers, it’s at the very top of the list.

So many of you said, thank you for coming here today, I want to thank you for having me here today. It is the greatest honor that I could possibly have, as your Vice President, to come here and say to these beautiful families, thank you, and I’m sorry, and from the bottom of my heart, speaking for all the American people, Democrat, Republican, and Independent, we love you, we’re grateful to you, and we’re sorry that you’ve had to sacrifice so much, but we know that we’re free, and we’re safe, and we’re peaceful because of what your families did. God bless you all, and thank you.

Gratitude to Event Organizers

Before I get into the meat of my remarks, I want to briefly express my gratitude to the men and women who’ve made this particular event possible. There are countless people who deserve shout outs, and I’m sure I won’t get to everybody, but I specifically want to thank, first of all, the Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes, who does an amazing job, and its Director, Jim Pasco, as well as the President of the National FOP Auxiliary Board, Glenda Lehmann.

Thank you to the three of you for having me, and thanks to the three of you for making this amazing day possible. And I told Patrick, I said to the FOP President that I would come back next year, but only if he sings the National Anthem next time, so we want to see how many talents Patrick has here.

Honoring the Fallen: A Call to Service

Let me just say that speaking before this audience one year ago, like I said earlier, was a solemn privilege. It’s amazing. I see these families, these beautiful families looking up at me, and I know that each one of you represents a story. And I want to say it’s my honor to be here again one year later.

I want to open with a line of scripture from the book of Isaiah. I suspect it’s a passage that all of you in law enforcement know very well, but I think it speaks so much to the sacrifice and to the duty and to the sense of purpose that every single law enforcement officer takes with them every single day of the job. In it, the prophet Isaiah recounts from inside the Temple of Jerusalem, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, here I am, send me.”

My friends, we gather this afternoon to honor men and women who heard the exact same call, men and women whose selflessness led them toward danger when others fled. People who said, send me, not send somebody else, but send me.

Officers Who Answered the Call

People whose service was a way of life, not a burden, and their love of community, of their families, of their neighborhoods, of the places they called home, bound them to a life of duty to others, a duty they lived out every single day from the first time they put on that amazing badge to the moment that they took their very last breath.

In the Old Testament, God does not force Isaiah to serve him. Isaiah knew it would not be easy, but he steps up willingly. He volunteers just like every single one of you and every single one of your loved ones. He accepts God’s call to give his life in service to his fellow man. And today, we remember men and women in uniform who laid down their lives answering that exact same call.

Honoring Officer Phillip Wagner

We honor men like Phillip Wagner, an officer with the local police department in Lorain in my home state of Ohio, who was killed in a cowardly ambush attack that, as the President said, President Yoes, has become all too common in our country.

Now, those of you who know him know that Officer Wagner was a family man, a Marine Corps veteran, Semper Fi, with eight years’ experience in law enforcement, and he left behind a beautiful wife and three children. On Wednesday afternoon last July, Officer Wagner and a fellow officer were in their patrol vehicle when a man opened fire on the car. He did nothing other than do his job, and a coward opened fire on him. After they called for help, a third officer was also ambushed.

Now while both of his colleagues survived, Officer Wagner would later succumb to the wounds that he suffered in the hospital, thankfully with his loved ones and his family by his side. This afternoon, we commemorate Officer Wagner’s devotion to his community and the duty he felt to protect it from those who would do it harm. We join with the countless cherished family and friends who mourn his loss.

Honoring Officer Suzanne O

Today we also honor heroes like Officer Suzanne O, a five-year veteran of the Maui County Police Department.

Suzanne was a devoted public servant, a woman who had known danger before. Two years before her death, she had been awarded the Certificate of Merit for her tireless efforts during the 2023 Hawaii wildfires.

Last August, Officer O was responding to reports of an armed and dangerous suspect when violence erupted, as it sometimes does. Amid the chaos, she and her fellow officers moved in, searching for the suspect to ensure that others would not be harmed by this violent criminal. And Officer O was mortally wounded while protecting her community, laying down her life in defense of the people that she loved and served every single day.

She left behind a family of her own, a sister, three brothers, an adoring boyfriend and many other loved ones, as well as a legacy. A legacy of quiet strength and a legacy of always putting the needs of others first, even when it requires the sacrifice of your own life. So today, we honor Officer O and give thanks for her.

Honoring the Detectives of Northern York County Regional Police Department

And finally today, we honor three officers from Pennsylvania’s Northern York County Regional Police Department. Their names were Detective Mark Baker, Detective Isaiah Emenheiser, and Detective Sergeant Cody Becker. Last September, these men were killed in the line of duty. They were working to serve an arrest warrant against a man wanted for stalking and threatening an innocent woman.

A man lying in wait, wearing camouflage, carrying an AR-15 and surveilling his victim in her home, a woman who felt no safety, no security because of the actions of a violent criminal. But these officers decided to do something about it. When they moved to protect her and carry out their duty, they were unfortunately met with a brutal ambush from this coward.

Now all three of these officers, Detective Baker, Detective Emenheiser, and Detective Sergeant Baker, gave their lives confronting evil without hesitation, placing themselves between danger and the people who depended on them most. These were talented and seasoned cops.

Honoring Those We Lost

Across the three of them, they represented nearly 60 years of experience within law enforcement. And each of them left behind grieving widows and beautiful children. Today, we pray for all five of these law enforcement officers and for the many others we honor this afternoon.

Now I know I don’t have time here to go through every single law enforcement officer that we’ve lost in the past year. We cannot tell every single story of every single family and of every single instance of brave sacrifice. But when I look at these white chairs here in the front rows, what I see is dozens of stories, dozens of brave people, dozens of family members, dozens of husbands and fathers, of moms, of wives, of people who loved their families but also loved the peace that exists in our community. And they loved it so much, they were willing to lay down their life to protect it.

So I want each of you to know, from the President, from the Vice President, from the entire administration, from a grateful nation, I see you. I recognize that each and every one of you lost something that we cannot possibly ever repay. But I want you to know from the entire United States of America, from our fellow citizens and the family member, of all American people, we love you, we’re thankful for you. We’re sorry for what you sacrificed but we will never forget what your officer laid down.

And every day, we have something that we can do. We can’t repay the sacrifice, but we can honor that sacrifice by making this country safer and stronger and more secure for the people that they serve by living up to what they sacrificed their lives for.

Progress Under the Trump Administration

In the Trump administration, we have made progress in ending the epidemic of senseless violence against our men and women in uniform. Now we can’t ever forget that a single officer lost in the line of duty is too much. But just as we mourn the officers we lost, we celebrate the fact that in 2025, I am proud to say that the deaths of on-duty law enforcement reached their lowest level in 80 years in the United States of America.

And that milestone comes amid a nationwide decline. We have to remember that that epidemic of violence that we experienced over the last few years, you can never get rid of evil. You’re always going to have terrible people who want to do the worst things. But allowing so many of those people free rein, allowing so many of them to strike at our law enforcement officers, ladies and gentlemen, that was a policy choice.

And I make the solemn promise to every single person here that so long as Donald J. Trump is the president, and so long as I am the vice president, we will never again let policymakers in the building behind us allow violent criminals to tee off on our police officers. We will fight for you just as you fight for us every single day.

Historic Declines in Violent Crime

Part of the reason we’ve seen that decline in violence is because working with all of you, we’ve crushed the criminal cartels and halted the tide of narcotics and migrant crime flooding across our borders because we knew that so much of the violence in our communities, so much of the violence that you were dealing with every single day was coming across that wide open border.

So last year, we celebrated another important milestone, that the murder rate in the United States of America fell to its lowest in 125 years, marking the largest single drop in recorded history in the United States of America. Since Inauguration Day back in 2025, we’ve seen steep declines across every major violent crime category. That’s something to celebrate. Murders, robberies, aggravated assault, every single category is down by double digit percentages.

We’ve seen similarly dramatic numbers across the board. Shooting deaths, rapes, traffic fatalities, and overdoses are all much lower today than they were just a year and a half ago.

An Attitude Shift Toward Law Enforcement

But I think most important is not the numbers, it’s the attitude shift that we’ve seen. We’ve shifted attitudes across our society when it comes to dealing with, and most importantly, honoring our law enforcement community. We stopped handcuffing the police and started handcuffing more violent criminals. We’ve restored a culture that supports, not second guesses, our officers when they go out and do their important work.

We’ve ended the shameful practice of micromanagement of state and local police started by the last administration. One week after I spoke before this audience last year, President Trump dropped a series of lawsuits from the Biden administration that wrongfully accused all of you of discrimination and accused your departments of discrimination. And we know that what that did is that it empowered the bad guys to tee off on you when they felt like they had an administration that was fighting with the bad guys instead of fighting for our cops and our law enforcement.

Because when it comes to federal law enforcement, there’s no more effective partner than all of you, than our state and local officers. We can’t do everything. We wouldn’t want to do everything. But we recognize that the jobs that you do every single day makes it easy for us to keep our fellow citizens safe.

Supporting Officers Through Policy and Reform

We’ve reduced the burden on police by giving city officials more freedom to move homeless and others causing chaos into treatment rather than languishing on the streets and endangering both themselves, but also their fellow citizens. And of course, we made sure that our men and women in uniform uniquely stood to benefit with our working families tax cuts. We fulfilled a campaign promise to end taxes on overtime because we know that so many of our law enforcement officers are working a lot of overtime.

We increased the salt cap because we know that a lot of you are working and living and paying taxes in very high tax jurisdictions. And perhaps most importantly, we funded vital grants for local police departments like the BURNT, JAG, and COPS program. And our attitude is very simple. You support us, so you deserve a government that supports you every single day.

Ending Cashless Bail and Holding Violent Criminals Accountable

And in response to the repeated and needless tragedy, we’ve taken action to end dangerous state and local policies like cashless bail. We had to get rid of it because it was letting way too many violent criminals out of prison. They were making our communities less safe and they were making all of you less safe. So we implemented a very simple proposal. How about we have a federal government that helps you put violent criminals in prison as opposed to letting them out of jail?

And when tragedy does occur, because we know that no matter what we do in a country of 330 million people, no matter what you do, there are always going to be some bad guys that are trying to cause harm, trying to cause violence, and trying to make our fellow citizens and our law enforcement suffer. So what we have to do is ensure that when an officer falls in the line of duty, two things happen.

Number one, the Department of Justice is aggressively seeking the death penalty for anybody who dares to kill a law enforcement officer in the United States of America. And number two, we’re taking care of all of you left behind when your loved one pays the ultimate sacrifice.

Standing by the Families of Fallen Officers

In 2025, the Department of Justice’s Public Safety Officers Benefits Program distributed more than $166 million in death and disability payments. Just as an officer would never leave behind a brother or sister in uniform, we will always stand by the families of those who are left mourning the loss of a brave police officer.

Now our work is far from finished, but allow me to leave you with a message of encouragement as we couldn’t do any of what we do without all of you. Your advocacy, your steadfast support for law enforcement, it moves mountains in Washington, D.C.

The Thin Blue Line Still Holds

A city that in recent years had turned its back on our men and women in uniform, but because of you, and because we’re reminding the nation once more of who stands between order and chaos, that thin blue line still holds.

Repairers of the Breach

My friends, later in the book of Isaiah, the Lord speaks through his prophet, and he says, “You shall be called the repairer of the breach. You shall be called the restorer of streets to dwell in.”

This afternoon, we honor the men and women who lived out that calling every single day, who gave everything for their belief in it. They stood in the breach for their communities so that the streets would be safe to dwell in. Where others brought violence and chaos, they brought order and peace, and though we mourn their passing back into the arms of their creator, those of us who remain inherit a new responsibility.

Our responsibility is simple, to follow in their footsteps and to devote our own lives to service. To stand beside the families these fallen officers loved, to fight for them as they fought for us. To remember the children, the grandchildren, the spouses and parents and the friends these fellow officers left behind. To speak their names, to tell their stories so that they’re never forgotten, and to always ensure that the country these officers gave their lives protecting remains worthy of the sacrifice of the very best among us.

Security Is the Birthright of Every American

You know, I stand up here with this very thick glass between me and you, and because I’m the Vice President of the United States, I am blessed to have a Secret Service detail. People who look after me, who put their lives on the line, just as your loved ones put their lives on the line. And what I realize is that the Vice President of the United States, of course, has a Secret Service detail, but 99.99% of our fellow citizens do not.

They don’t have a Secret Service detail, they have you, and they have your loved ones. And one of the great things about the United States of America is it was founded on the basic principle that whether you were rich or poor or black or white, everybody deserves safety and security and peace in their neighborhoods. Security is not just something for the rich and the powerful, security is something that ought to be the birthright of every single American child and every single American family.

That is what makes our country so special, and because you are the people who fight for that principle, who enforce that principle, who protect that principle, I am forever indebted to you. God bless you, God bless your families, God bless the fallen, and may He continue to bless the great United States of America. Thank you for having me.

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