Retired police chief and LET agree...the police vote could sway the election for Trump due to Harris' disdain for cops

As the country's largest law enforcement media company, Law Enforcement Today has the pulse of today’s police officers and law enforcement officials.

While some tend to slip through the cracks, such as Bexar County, Texas Sheriff Javier Salazar, on whom we recently reported, law enforcement professionals generally support those who support them. That is why we believe police officers will overwhelmingly support former President Donald Trump this November. 

Kamala Harris and the Democrats have done a copious amount of bloviating about her history as a “tough on crime” prosecutor while painting President Trump as a “convicted criminal.”

Most police officers, however, can see through the bullshit. And that is why we agree with retired Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel, who takes the position that “no police officer or family member should vote for [Harris’] agenda because it’s anti-police.” Weitzel said that to 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,” Weitzel said. “And many of those prisoners that were bonded out had attacked police officers during the riot, especially the George Floyd rioting.” 

Weitzel noted that his comments on Harris and Trump come from the viewpoint of public safety, not politics. He examined both candidates based on their track record of supporting law enforcement while being anti-criminal. On both counts, Harris is an abject failure. 

Weitzel believes that police support for Trump could sway the election, recognizing that police, together with their families, account for about 1.5 million potential voters. 

“I read a story the other day that there’s over 710,000 police officers, full-time officers in the United States, or over 840,000 if you take in federal law enforcement and specialized agencies, such as colleges and universities,” Weitzel said. “Those are votes, and most of those law enforcement officers, you know, their spouses, their children, their friends, there could be 1.5 million votes there, easily, if not more.” We would estimate it is likely double that. 

Indeed, Harris’s record as a district attorney in San Francisco and attorney general in California could spell trouble if she seeks the law enforcement vote. 

“She’s one of these people who’ve talked out of both sides of her mouth, and she’s going to have trouble with both the left and the right with the stances she’s taken over the years,” LA-based criminal defense lawyer Nicole Castronovo told Fox News Digital in July. 

In 2014, Harris backed Proposition 47, a controversial California law that is blamed for the rampant crime that has plagued California, in particular over the past several years. The law, bizarrely called the “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act," actually lessened penalties for many crimes, including making a threshold of $950 or less for shoplifting that reduced the crime to a misdemeanor. That provision is blamed for an onslaught of shoplifting and organized flash mobs stealing from stores, forcing some companies to abandon California’s cities altogether. 

“They changed sentencing to free criminals who should have been incarcerated and titled it with a misleading name,” Castronovo said. “But it actually made communities less safe.”

Harris was also a strong backer of radical Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, a George Soros-financed hack who has overseen a disjointed DA’s office and been subject to several unsuccessful recall campaigns. 

Harris was also a strong proponent of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would tie the hands of police, put use-of-force policies under the auspices of the federal government, ban chokeholds, restrict no-knock warrants, and eliminate the transfer of surplus military equipment to state and local police agencies. She also condemned qualified immunity laws for police officers, which protects police from frivolous lawsuits. 

Chief Weitzel retired from the Riverside (Illinois) Police Department in 2021 after serving as the department chief for 13 years. Riverside is located approximately 12 miles from downtown Chicago. All told, Weitzel served in law enforcement for 37 years, which included him being ambushed and shot in the line of duty in 1987. 

Fox News Digital spoke to Weitzel just days after the Democratic National Convention formalized Joe Biden's overthrow and selected Harris as their nominee. Harris claimed support for the military and touted her law enforcement background in San Francisco and as California’s attorney general. However, Fox News Digital wrote, "She did not offer full-throated support to police or first responders. 

Out of her three references to law enforcement during her acceptance speech, Harris made two references to January 6, 2021, the so-called “insurrection” that Democrats bloviate about. 

Harris claimed during her speech that she knows “the importance of safety and security, especially at our border,” ignoring the fact that an estimated ten million plus illegal aliens have crossed the porous southern border since she and Biden took office in January 2021. She tried to pin the blame on Trump, complaining about a failed border bill from earlier this year, three years after the Biden/Harris administration laid out the welcome mat. 

That border bill, which Democrats claim was a “bipartisan” bill, was, in fact, only supported by three RINO Republican senators. It was opposed by Trump and an overwhelming majority of Republicans because it did little to stop the flow of illegals into the country while also providing a pathway to citizenship for those who had already crossed into the country. 

Weitzel said Harris made a “huge mistake” by not trying to mend fences with police during her speech. Conversely, he said, President Trump continued his unwavering support to law enforcement and first responders during the Republican National Convention in July, where he took time out of his remarks to honor retired fire chief Corey Comperatore, who was killed by a sniper’s bullet when President Trump was shot in Pennsylvania on July 13. 

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

Weitzel criticized Harris for not honoring first responders during her acceptance speech, claiming it was a mistake. She praised Trump’s “human touch” of honoring Comperatore, noting it “spoke volumes” to those serving in public safety. 

“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?” Weitzel said. “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. 

Weitzel believes that the election will come down to “lawlessness vs. law and order” and that police support of the 45th president will only increase as the election season enters its final stages this fall. 

He said police officers he’s spoken to, as well as those Law Enforcement Today has spoken to, have expressed “concern” about Harris possibly being elected, noting that Democrats in 2020 “turned their backs on officers” while trying to defund the police amid violent riots following George Floyd’s overdose death in Minneapolis. Thousands of police officers were injured during those riots, and Democrats, by and large, ignored those injuries, instead focusing on rioters allegedly injured by police. 

“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,” Weitzel said. And yes, they are concerned that if Kamala Harris were 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. 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. 

In 2020, as the riots in Minneapolis and nationwide were raging, Harris encouraged people to donate to a bail fund to release rioters from jail in Minneapolis, including those who burned down a police precinct. 

“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 Twitter (now X). 

In addition, in an appearance on CBS’ Late Show with Steven Colbert,” Harris told Colbert that rioters were “not gonna stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after Election Day…and they should not.” 

Weitzel spoke about Harris pushing the Minneapolis bail fund and highlighted her failure to prosecute some criminals while serving 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,” Weitzel said. Sen. Dianne Feinstein slammed Harris’ decision not to seek the death penalty. 

That case refers to the murder of 29-year-old SFPD officer Isaac Espinoza by a gang member who shot at him and his partner after being caught with a firearm. Harris said she would not support the death penalty against the gang member because it would “send the wrong message.”  

That is but one example of Harris’ lack of support for police officers, and nothing she’s done since gives any indication she has changed her stance. 

“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,” Weitzel 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, [and] attacked than ever before.” 

“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.”