Bill to Help Law Enforcement Prepare for Active Shooter Situations Passes During National Police Week

Earlier this week I had the chance to visit with a police officer by the name of Gregory Stevens of the Garland, Texas, Police Department.

I think it's appropriate during Police Week for us to honor people like Officer Stevens by telling their stories. On Monday, President Obama presented Officer Stevens the Medal of Valor, the highest honor given to a police officer.

During National Police Week, we should note that there are more than 900,000 law enforcement officers serving our country.

These are folks who get up every morning, and kiss their families goodbye, and go to work, and put on a uniform, and put themselves in harm's way to protect our communities and our families.

We need to do everything we can do to help professional law enforcement officials learn how to do their job as effectively and as safely as possible. And one simple way we can do that is by making sure that they have access to the very best and latest training techniques like, for example, active shooter training.

That's why I'm glad to join my colleague, the Senior Senator from Vermont, in sponsoring a piece of legislation called the POLICE Act.

This is pretty straightforward, and it's bipartisan, so it doesn't make a lot of news, but I do think it serves a useful purpose. It will allow the use of existing grant money for police training to be used for this active shooter training.

We have seen terrorist attacks and sudden acts of violence in communities across the country, and thankfully, we have people like Officer Stevens who helped avoid a tragedy in Garland. But we should do everything we can to help equip our law enforcement officials with the training and tools they need in order to do their jobs as effectively as possible.

I can think of no better way to honor those who serve our country so well during Police Week than to pass the POLICE Act which will, in some way, some small way, provide them access to the training they need in order to do their jobs better and help keep our communities safer.