Deputy Alden Clopton’s Life Saved by Bullet Proof Vest

Last month, a few weeks ago, Alden Clopton was on patrol after midnight. He is a deputy constable in Houston, Texas. He works for the constable’s office at Precinct 7. Constables are just like deputy sheriffs and police officers. They have all the power under the State of Texas laws as any other police officer.

He was on routine patrol with his rookie partner trainee, Ann Glasgow, and they made a traffic stop in a tough part of town in Houston, Texas. As the investigation is taking place some outlaw snuck up behind Alden Clopton and pulled out a pistol and shot at him six times in the back.

Some of those bullets made their mark and some of those bullets missed. He owes his life, he says, to the bulletproof vest that he was wearing.

Constable May Walker, a constable at Precinct 7, said he survived because he was wearing a vest.

You may have never heard of Alden Clopton, but he is a peace officer who comes from a peace officer family. His wife is a deputy sheriff; his three brothers are all in law enforcement; and his son is a cop in Mississippi, I believe.

He lives today because he had a bulletproof vest on. As the ranking member has said and as the chairman has said, we owe it to peace officers to protect them when they go out in society and do society’s dirty work for us— to protect and serve us.

This week is National Police Week. We honor our police officers—those who protect us, those who work the thin blue line to protect us from those who would do us harm. This is an appropriate piece of legislation to show peace officers like Alden Clopton and all of those throughout the country that we have their backs—that we support them—and that Congress is going to do what is necessary to protect them while they protect us.

And that is just the way it is.