Police vote key to election as cops weigh 'lawlessness vs law and order' on ballot: retired chief

The votes of the law enforcement professionals and their families will help determine the election as police officers weigh the prospect of heightened lawlessness on American streets under a potential Vice President Harris administration, a retired Illinois police chief predicted. 

"It's my personal belief that no police officer or family member should vote for [Harris'] agenda, because it's anti-police," retired Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview. 

"All you have to do is look at her record. I mean, you can go back to when she helped the Minneapolis Freedom Fund. I don't know of any evidence that she donated money, but I do know evidence that she publicized it and that attracted more money to that freedom fund, which is basically a bond fund to bond out prisoners. And many of those prisoners that were bonded out had attacked police officers during the riot, especially the George Floyd rioting."

Weitzel said his comments on Harris, the 2024 Democrat presidential nominee, and her Republican opponent, former President Trump, are made through a public safety lens, stripping away typical Republican-vs.-Democrat politics in favor of weighing the two candidates based on their track record of curbing crime and supporting law enforcement. 

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Weitzel argued that the police vote could sway the election, noting that when considering family members and loved ones, the police vote sits at about 1.5 million people. 

"I read a story the other day that there's over 710,000 police officers, full-time police officers in the United States, over [840,000] if you take in federal law enforcement and specialized agencies, such as colleges and universities. Those are votes and most of those law enforcement officers you know, their spouses, their children, their friends, that there could be 1.5 million votes there, easily, if not more," Weitzel explained. 

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Weitzel retired from the Riverside Police Department, which is located about 12 miles from downtown Chicago, in 2021 after serving as the department’s chief for 13 years. He served in law enforcement for a total of 37 years, which included him being ambushed and shot in the line of duty in 1987 by Chicago criminals. 

Fox News Digital spoke to Weitzel just days after high-profile Democrats flooded Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, where Harris officially accepted her party’s nomination for president. Harris touted the military and her law enforcement background as San Francisco's district attorney and California attorney general, but she did not offer full-throated support to police or first responders. 

Harris said "law enforcement" three times in her speech on Thursday evening, including two references to Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of Trump breached the U.S. Capitol.

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"And let me be clear … after decades in law enforcement, I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border. Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The border patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign, so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal," Harris said when mentioning law enforcement for the third and final time in her speech. 

Weitzel said Harris made a "huge mistake" by not trying to build a bridge with police during her speech, pointing to how Trump conversely made further inroads with law enforcement and first responders during his Republican National Convention (RNC) speech in July, when he paid an emotional tribute to retired fire chief Corey Comperatore.

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Comperatore was killed last month in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a Trump rally when shooter Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate the 45th president. Trump was wounded when a bullet grazed his ear. 

"Corey, a highly respected former fire chief ... was accompanied by his wife, Helen ... and two precious daughters," Trump said during his convention speech. "He lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield to protect them from flying bullets ... what a fine man he was."

Trump also walked over to Comperatore’s firefighting jacket and helmet, which were sent to the convention by his family, and held a moment of silence for the Pennsylvania dad.

Weitzel said Harris not honoring first responders in her speech was a mistake while arguing Trump’s "human touch" of honoring Comperatore spoke volumes to those who work in public safety.

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"Trump honored the firefighter that was killed during his assassination attempt. Did you see the part when he walked over to where they put a mannequin up with his fire gear on? That type of respect for the fire service is the same type of respect it is given to law enforcement. That's a public safety realm. That's the public safety realm of fire and police, and that's why police officers support him also. … That type of human touch and that type of support that was shown during the RNC for that fire chief that was killed is the same reason police are supporting him and have been since his presidency," Weitzel said. 

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Weitzel said the election comes down to "lawlessness vs. law and order" and that police support of Trump's run will only increase as the election cycle spills into the fall. 

The retired police chief said the cops who he speaks to are "concerned" about a potential Harris administration after Democrats nationwide turned their backs on officers in 2020, rallying support to defund police amid widespread riots following the death of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

"They're very concerned. And make no mistake, you know, Trump isn't perfect. Nobody's saying everything he does is fantastic. … I'm just talking from a public safety perspective. And yes, they are concerned that if Kamala Harris was to become president and her administration would not be supportive of police, and that would be a huge deal. I mean … you're talking about the United States Justice Department. You're talking about funding for police agencies, federal grant funding. You're talking about policies that would be set up nationally, and you would just have this framework [that's] anti-police and anti-police agenda. You know what that breeds? That breeds lawlessness," he said. 

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Harris’ career, up until she was sworn in as a senator in 2017, focused on law enforcement. 

She launched her legal career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office as a deputy DA in 1990. In the late 1990s, she moved over to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office as assistant DA, then to the San Francisco city attorney’s office before running in 2004 to become San Francisco’s top cop. She was elected as San Francisco DA and served in the role for about seven years, in that time building a friendship with then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and rubbing elbows with fellow Californian, Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Harris sympathized with rioters during the 2020 protests that swept the nation at a time when the coronavirus pandemic was at a fever pitch and upended day-to-day life for Americans. 

​​"If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota," Harris posted on X, then Twitter, in 2020, urging people to donate to the fund during the 2020 campaign. 

Harris promoted the bail fund in June 2020 to help bail Black Lives Matter rioters out of jail, but only a fraction of the more than $41 million actually went to freeing rioters, subsequent reporting found. 

Weitzel pointed to Harris’ promotion of the bail fund, as well as her failure to prosecute some criminals when she served as San Francisco DA and California attorney general. 

"There's a very well-known case in 2004 where there was a San Francisco police officer brutally murdered with an AK-47, and she, three days after he was buried, came out with a statement that she would not seek the death penalty, and even her own Democratic Party in California did not support her on that one," he said.

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Weitzel was referring to the 2004 murder of 29-year-old San Francisco police officer Isaac Espinoza by a gang member who shot at the officer and his partner to avoid being caught with a firearm. Harris turned down seeking the death penalty against the perpetrator, arguing it would "send the wrong message," sparking fellow Democrats at the time to criticize the decision. 

"This is clearly a case where local politics took precedence over the facts of the case and a deliberative review of the circumstances," a Democrat California assemblyman said at the time of Harris’ decision. 

Espinoza's family members have since said they will not support Harris in her 2024 presidential run, the New York Post reported. 

As law enforcement officers – and loved ones of cops – head to the polls this year, Weitzel called on them to weigh the "lawlessness" that has played out on the streets of America since 2020 and vote on the platform of public safety. 

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"Lawlessness is absolutely flooding this country. You can see it. All you have to do is follow any social media accounts. You can see it in local news," he said. "... We see politicians put out that you can pretty much do what you want and disregard the police. And I can tell you that there are more and more police officers being assaulted, battered, attacked than ever before."

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"In fact, there was just a study that came out that there's a police officer shot, not killed, but a police officer shot in the line of duty every 22 hours in America. If that continues, we will have more shootings of police officers and more police officer deaths by the end of 2024 than ever."

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.