Locals show their support for police officers
While people across the nation are protesting against police brutality, local people are coming together to honor and show their support for police officers.
On Friday evening, dozens of people showed their support in Idaho Falls and Blackfoot for National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day.
In Idaho Falls, people placed an officer’s name on a tree with a brief note. The show of solidarity for officers in southeast Idaho is much different than the violent protests taking place nationally.
“Nationally, it’s sad to see to see that people don’t understand what police officers do. There are good police officers out there and they risk their lives to help save you, locally we understand that,” Heather Elverud said.
Officer Sabas Flores of the Idaho Falls Police Department has been an officer for 13 years. Although he knows about the many dangers of the job, he does it for the community.
“You never know what is going to happen. One day nothing will happen, and the next day it will be chaos,” Flores said.
Meanwhile, Capt. Royce Clements of IFPD said he was involved in a shooting, and it was very difficult for his family.
“We are there to protect the people. We work very hard to do that in a very difficult environment because the rules on both sides of the game aren’t the same. Our rules are the U.S. Constitution, which we believe in to our core, but the bad guys don’t have to follow the rules, so that is very challenging for us,” he said.
Clements’ statement comes at a time when police officers are seeing a huge wave of violence. Most recently, two officers from the New York Police Department were killed sitting in a patrol car. The funerals were held last weekend.
Anti-police protesters said the reason they are not showing support has to do with police brutality. This comes after police officers in New York and Missouri killed two black men.
This was the first Law Enforcement Appreciation Day. It was started by the FBI National Academy to thank officers for their service.
