Vice President JD Vance honors fallen officers, pledges tougher prosecutions and support for survivors

Vice President JD Vance delivered the keynote at a memorial service honoring law-enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, praising their sacrifice and promising federal support and tougher prosecutions, he said.

Speaking after an introduction by the event presenter, Vance named specific officers killed over the past year — including Officer Philip Wagner of Lorraine, Ohio; Officer Suzanne Oh of the Maui County Police Department; and Detective Mark Baker, Detective Isaiah Emenizer and Sergeant Cody Becker of the Northern York County Regional Police Department — and described the circumstances of their deaths and the families they left behind. "We love you, we're grateful to you, and we're sorry that you've had to sacrifice so much," Vance said.

Vance framed law enforcement as responding to a moral "call to serve," quoting the book of Isaiah and saying the country owes a debt to officers who "laid down their lives answering that exact same call." He urged attendees to "speak their names, to tell their stories so that they're never forgotten."

The vice president credited administration policies with recent declines in several crime categories, saying that deaths of on-duty law-enforcement officers "reached their lowest level in 80 years" and that the national murder rate fell "to its lowest in 125 years," statements he presented as measures of progress under the current administration. He also said murders, robberies and aggravated assaults were down "by double digit percentages." Those figures are Vance's characterizations of national trends and are attributed in this article to his remarks.

Linking crime to border issues, Vance asserted that narcotics and "migrant crime" flowing across what he called a "wide open border" had contributed to violence in communities, and he credited administration actions against cartels and migration enforcement with reducing criminal activity.

On federal responses to crimes against officers, Vance said the Department of Justice was "aggressively seeking the death penalty for anybody who dares to kill a law enforcement officer in the United States of America." He also said the DOJ's Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program distributed "more than $166,000,000 in death and disability payments" in 2025 to survivors, and he pledged continued support for families left behind.

Vance listed federal measures he said supported police, including tax changes that affected overtime pay and the state-and-local tax (SALT) cap and continued funding of grant programs such as Byrne, JAG and COPS. He urged a national culture that "supports, not second guesses, our officers," and promised the administration would "fight for you just as you fight for us."

The event began with opening remarks by the presenter, who introduced Vance and thanked him for attending on behalf of surviving families and the law-enforcement community. Vance closed by blessing the families of the fallen and thanking attendees for allowing him to speak.

The speech was a ceremonial address; no formal policy actions or votes were recorded at the event.