Twelve years is a long time to be New York City police commissioner, the longest by far that anyone has ever served in the job. And that’s not even counting the year and a half I was commissioner in the early 1990s. It’s been an incredible honor, leading the world’s premier police department through such challenging and important days. I am immensely grateful to those who joined me and hugely proud of what we have been able to achieve.
I have to keep saying “we.” I didn’t do any of this alone, any more than I ever acted alone in the half century I have spent in the military and law enforcement. These were not solo endeavors. They required smart, talented, and dedicated teammates every step of the way. I have been blessed with great people in all these organizations, none surpassing the remarkable men and women of the New York City Police Department.
When Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed me police commissioner in those fragile post-9/11 days, I divided the task ahead into three main categories—the three Cs, I called them—counterterrorism, crime fighting, and community relations. All three, I knew, would require energy, creativity, and constant vigilance, more even than I imagined, as things turned out. In all three areas, I am proud to say, we saw tremendous successes.
The terror fight had so many different facets. It required a huge commitment and great creativity on our part. The creation of a real NYPD counterterrorism division, the expansion of the intelligence divisions, buttressing the Joint Terrorism Task Force with New York City police detectives, stationing other NYPD detectives overseas, hiring analysts from some of the top colleges in the country, bringing experts with heavy federal experience, enacting Operation Hercules, putting critical response resources onto the street, building vast new data and technology components—no one could possibly say we didn’t throw ourselves into the fight.
We relied constantly on the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies—local, state, federal, and international—as well as people from the private sector. We took help and guidance wherever we could find them and recruited some of the nation’s top counterterror experts to join the NYPD. When we arrived at the start of 2002, you couldn’t find anyone who thought the terrorists were through with New York City. After the deadly and spectacular results of 9/11, further attacks were considered a near certainty. Well, they tried. Relentlessly. Thankfully, we were ready for them.
We knew that no one would protect New York like New York would. We knew our city would always be a prime target for terrorists. We vowed we wouldn’t let our guard down. We never forgot the importance of robust information gathering. We understood that our tactics always had to be a step ahead of the tactics we were guarding against. We recognized that a lull, even a long one, didn’t mean we were safe for good.
The threat of terrorism is likely to be a permanent fixture of modern living, in New York City and elsewhere. The vigilance we established must continue indefinitely. But am I proud to say that, working together with our partners inside and outside the NYPD, we kept New York City safe after 9/11 and gave its people a dozen uninterrupted years without a successful terrorist attack.
At the same time, we pushed crime to an all-time low. After the declines of the late-Dinkins and early-Giuliani years, most experts thought we’d be lucky just keeping crime where it was. We didn’t accept that notion. We launched a series of crime-fighting strategies: keeping the cops constantly active, questioning people on the street when appropriate, finding creative new uses for data and technology, addressing special challenges with Operation Impact, Operation Crew Cut, the Real Time Crime Center, and many other initiatives. It wasn’t any one thing that kept the crime rate falling. It was all those things done together and repeatedly. In the daily battle against crime and criminals, the police must never let up. There are many ways to measure our success fighting crime and violence. None is more gratifying than that often quoted homicide statistic: in the twelve years beginning with 2002, 9,500 fewer people were murdered in New York City than in the previous twelve years. Those 9,500 people, alive today, bear eloquent witness to what our efforts achieved. That gave us the lowest murder rate by far of any major American city.
As crime kept dropping, we were also building stronger relationships in the many diverse communities that make up New York City. By the end of the Giuliani administration, things had grown increasingly tense in this regard. So we devoted greater resources to community relations than the NYPD ever had before—inviting citizens into the local station houses, getting our officers to mix more casually in the community, encouraging precinct commanders to get to know people in the neighborhoods where they served, and making sure the police were helping to solve local issues long before they grew into violence or crime. At the same time, we kept improving the diversity inside the department. With robust populations of blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, gays, and just about every other group represented on the job, we benefited from a level of cultural sophistication unmatched anywhere in law enforcement. I’m certain there is no other police department on earth that can boast that it has officers born in 106 different countries, the result of aggressive and sustained recruiting efforts on our part.
We took some tragic casualties and lost some very good people along the way. One of the toughest duties of a police commissioner is also one of the most crucial—being there when one of our people is badly hurt or killed. Police work can be dangerous. Everyone understands that. But when the worst does happen, the NYPD comes together like a close, caring family, doing everything imaginable to show support and ease the grief. In times of trouble, this is a culture that rallies around its own. It is impressive to witness, even more so to be part of. As commissioner, it was my job—and my honor—to be present for the worst possible moments, connecting personally with our people and their loved ones and doing what I could to help. I got to know many injured officers and the family members of those who paid the ultimate price.
Many of those memories are forever seared into my heart. Time and again, standing with the loved ones of those killed on 9/11 and those who died subsequently from Ground Zero–related illnesses, I am inspired by their strength, awed by their perseverance, and saddened by the terrible burdens they are forever forced to carry as they bravely press on with their lives.
Being in the emergency room at Bellevue Hospital in January 2012 as doctors pulled a bullet from the head of Officer Kevin Brennan, who’d been shot while arresting a suspect at the Bushwick Houses in Brooklyn. Miraculously, Brennan left the hospital, returned to the job, and was promoted to detective and then to sergeant and assigned to the Intelligence Division. The baptism of his child in St. Patrick’s Cathedral was one of the happiest celebrations I have ever attended.
Keeping vigil at Kings County Hospital with Tatyana and Leonid Timoshenko while doctors tried to save their twenty-three-year-old son, rookie officer Russel Timoshenko. He and his partner, Herman Yan, were both shot in 2007 after pulling over a stolen BMW in Crown Heights. Timoshenko, who was shot in the face and throat, died five days later.
Escorting the mother of Detective Patrick Rafferty into a room at Kings County Hospital so she could see the body of her son. He and his partner at the Sixty-Seventh squad, Robert Parker, were both shot and killed on September 10, 2004, questioning an ex-convict they suspected of stealing his mother’s car.
Going to Staten Island with Mayor Bloomberg and notifying Maryann Andrews and Rose Nemorin that their husbands were dead. Detectives Rodney Andrews and James Nemorin were both shot in the head on a deserted block during a 2003 firearms sting. They were posing as firearms traffickers planning to buy a TEC-9 submachine gun.
Getting to know Leslyn Stewart, whose husband Dillon Stewart was killed in 2005. He was pursuing a driver in Brooklyn when five shots were fired into his radio car, one of which slipped above his bulletproof vest and into his heart. Despite being shot, he kept driving for blocks in pursuit of the gunman.
There were countless stories of heroism, valor, and courage. But unfortunately there were many that involved tragedy and loss. The officers and their families were truly inspirational. Their stories stay with you. Steven McDonald was shot in 1986, long before I was commissioner, while questioning a suspected bicycle thief in Central Park. The three bullets left him paralyzed from the neck down. His wife, Patti Ann, and his son, Conor, have never left his side. I had the honor, as commissioner, of promoting this brave officer to first-grade detective and having Conor wear my former shield, number 15978, when he joined the NYPD in 2010.
We ask so much of these people. We must give them everything in return.
It matters when the police commissioner shows up, for our own people and for those we are privileged to serve. I spent countless hours attending worship services, visiting hospitals, going to public meetings, marching in parades—making sure I was plainly visible, especially in parts of the city where police brass was rarely seen except in the aftermath of some horrific disturbance or crime. It was far better, I believed, to build personal relationships in calmer moments. Then, at the very least, we’d have open lines of communication when the next crisis occurred. All these efforts together didn’t mean we eliminated all tensions between the police and the people we served. We’ll always have some of those, I am sure. But we had far fewer than in any recent city administration, and we tried to address them openly, frankly, and quickly when questionable cases arose.
* * *
The challenges were obvious from day one. But it was only in hindsight that I could see how so many factors collaborated to bring the past twelve years to life. The city, the threat, the mayor, our partners, some quirks of history, and my own personal experience all came together at this unique moment in time, and thank God they did.
Some of this was where I came from. My four-plus decades at the NYPD meant I knew the place well—its strengths, its characters, its far-off corners, its weaknesses—far better than any outsider possibly could. I knew where to go looking for sharp, hidden talent, and I knew who and what best to avoid. The fact that I’d been police commissioner during the last terror attack in 1993 was an added bonus. I had a clear idea of how such incidents were traditionally dealt with. And I had direct personal knowledge of how much the NYPD’s top job entailed. The short answer: a lot.
My experience outside the NYPD was valuable as well. Having led U.S. marines in combat in Vietnam, I learned some things about motivating people and the tools of crisis management, especially the importance of effective teamwork when the stakes are highest. My education at Manhattan College, St. John’s, NYU, and Harvard gave me critical insights into management and the law and set me off on a lifelong quest for learning. The time I spent in federal law enforcement as undersecretary for enforcement at the U.S. Treasury Department and as U.S. Customs commissioner was immensely helpful. It gave me a keen understanding of Washington’s contribution to America’s safety as well as a healthy skepticism. It certainly taught me a lot about navigating Washington’s sprawling bureaucracies. I respected the federal agencies, but I certainly wasn’t cowed by them. I knew we could enter some of the same arenas and perform at the highest levels. And my time with the police monitors in Haiti showed me vividly the human goodness that can rise even in abysmal circumstances and what can happen when social order really breaks down.
Had I not had this four-decade journey before saying yes to Mike Bloomberg, I’m not sure my experience as New York City police commissioner would have been remotely the same.
The uniqueness of our circumstances must not be understated either. When I returned as commissioner, the NYPD had a set of challenges and opportunities unlike anything that had existed before.
The horrors of 9/11 were fresh in everyone’s mind. That gave us the leeway to make dramatic changes that, at a calmer moment, would have faced far greater opposition inside and outside the NYPD. In Mike Bloomberg, I had a boss who gave us extraordinary freedom to operate as we thought best. Without the mayor’s faith and trust, we never could have gotten nearly as much done.
We also had a federal government that, despite its power and reach, really hadn’t done that much to protect New York and America’s other major cities from terrorism. Since terror fighting had become part of the national agenda, Washington had focused mostly on securing the transportation system, air travel especially, and taking the terror fight abroad. The field of urban counterterrorism was largely open to us.
And New York in the time after 9/11 was extraordinarily situated to answer that call. The city was large enough and the NYPD was staffed enough to benefit from real economies of scale despite operating with six thousand fewer police officers than in the previous administration. We could assign a thousand people on counterterror duty and still get the rest of our work done. What other police department could do that? We also benefited from the fact that, thanks to Mayors Giuliani and Dinkins, traditional street crime wasn’t wildly out of control. If this had been 1985 or 1990, when homicides were soaring, it is hard to imagine we could have justified all the resources we needed to fight the war on terror. People would have been screaming too loudly about homicides in South Jamaica and East New York.
All these factors came together in a way they never had before and I’m not sure they ever will again.
We had a threat that everyone could understand and get behind. The basic job of policing was getting done. We had the scale to afford the resources and the talent inside and out. I had experience inside the NYPD and a broader view that came from working in Washington. I could say, “We’re going to do things differently now”—and mean it. And with Mike Bloomberg’s support, we actually got it done.
* * *
The lessons go far beyond New York City.
Other parts of America aren’t quite the terror magnet that New York is, but the terrorists can turn their attention anywhere. Doubt that? Just ask the people of Boston or Oklahoma City. No one can say for certain which city or town will be targeted next time. So a certain level of wariness is justified everywhere. I don’t expect every small police department to establish its own full-scale counterterror operation. That’s just not possible. Our efforts at the NYPD consumed a large commitment of finite resources—dollars and people alike—far beyond the budgets of all but the largest law enforcement agencies. Still, local communities need to confront these threats, whether that means aligning with neighboring communities, working with state and federal agencies, or dreaming up fresh, creative approaches that work for their towns. The dangers are out there. No one can afford to simply ignore them.
At the same time, the daily challenges of regular policing never go away. Fighting crime. Maintaining order. Protecting people. Maintaining good relations with local communities. Someone has to do it, and no matter where you live, that someone will almost always be the local police. Our experiences in New York and my almost half century in law enforcement hopefully offer some valuable insights.
As I write this in 2015, our nation’s police departments are facing enormous scrutiny. Though crime remains low by historic standards, controversial police shootings aren’t just sparking protests and lawsuits—in some places, they provoked riots, looting, and massive violence in the streets. From Ferguson, Missouri, to North Charleston, South Carolina; from Baltimore, Maryland, to Staten Island, New York, many Americans feel intensely aggrieved at the behavior of some police officers. There is too much anxiety, too little trust, and far too much misunderstanding on all sides. Each specific case is different. From place to place, the blame can be apportioned in a variety of ways. Some complaints are legitimate. Others are overblown. Some reactions are justified. Others are just excuses for looting and criminality. But one thing is certain already: We’ve had more than enough sloganeers on all sides of these issues. It’s time for smart people who understand the complexities to start making some key distinctions here.
First, there’s no need to panic. Today’s police overall are more professional, better educated, better trained, more diverse, and more restrained than ever before. It is simply not true, statistically speaking, that American police are on a murderous rampage. New York City, of course, is the case I know best. In 1971, the NYPD killed ninety-three people in the course of policing New York City. In 2013, my last year as commissioner, our officers killed eight, the lowest number ever recorded since reliable record keeping was instituted in the NYPD. It was also the lowest per capita of any big city in America. We had the fewest nonfatal police shootings as well. I wish all these numbers were zero. But this could not be called an explosion of police violence. Quite the opposite. While other cities may not have had declines as dramatic as ours, many have also seen significant drops.
Many other lessons of policing we have learned in New York have also been learned elsewhere. That police officers need to stay active and engaged. That the biggest beneficiaries of lower crime rates are those who live in the most crime-prone neighborhoods. How data and technology can be valuable tools in focusing police attention. How diversity almost always makes policing easier. But some big problems do remain. Some important issues are not being adequately addressed today. We must address them, ideally without discarding the hard-won gains that have undeniably been made.
There is no denying we’ve had a rash of controversial cases of police officers killing unarmed civilians. Just in late 2014 and the first half of 2015, the reports seem to be everywhere. On Staten Island, Eric Garner died gasping for air as he was grabbed around the neck while being arrested. In Ferguson, police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed teenager Michael Brown. In North Charleston, Officer Michael Slager shot and killed a fleeing Walter Scott. Freddie Gray ended up dead with a broken spine in the back of a Baltimore police van. In apparent retaliation for the deaths of Brown and Garner, Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley shot and killed New York City police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were sitting in their radio car in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
The Garner and Scott deaths were caught on cell phone cameras. Part of the Brown encounter was captured on a voice mail recording. All received extensive media coverage.
I have no firsthand knowledge of any of these cases beyond what I’ve learned from others’ investigations. But the South Carolina case—an unarmed, fleeing man shot in the back by a police officer after a traffic stop—was shockingly unjustified. The video of Eric Garner’s death—“I can’t breathe… I can’t breathe,” the Staten Island man pleads repeatedly to the officers arresting him—is difficult to watch. It was in my first tour as police commissioner that choke holds were declared to be a violation of NYPD regulations, a rule that has remained in force. Though the Staten Island grand jury did not indict any of the officers, I certainly would have preferred that the testimony in the case had been released in its entirety. That way, people could have independently judged the evidence presented by the Staten Island district attorney, Dan Donovan.
It’s hard to know exactly what happened inside that police van in Baltimore. So far, I have not seen a thorough accounting for how Freddie Gray ended up with a broken spine and dead. In Ferguson, by contrast, the evidence seems clear: Michael Brown’s shooting was tragic but legally justified. It’s never good when an unarmed civilian ends up dead at the hands of a police officer. But there is strong evidence in this case that the teenager confronted the police officer in a highly aggressive fashion, clearly justifying the officer’s response. Brown’s DNA was found on Officer Wilson’s collar and gun.
There was an additional irony in the Brown case. Though Officer Wilson was not charged, the shooting did highlight severe problems inside the Ferguson police department: hostile relations with the community, an abysmal diversity record, unwise strategies on the street. The police in Ferguson handled the Brown incident terribly. They failed to release information in a timely fashion. As a result, Michael Brown’s companion became the de facto spokesperson and, as it later turned out, was not telling the truth. They then had far too many officials talking to the media, delivering confusing and conflicting reports. They left Brown’s body in the street for hours. All that contributed to the rush to judgment against Darren Wilson.
I just wish that amid all the media coverage of the department’s many faults, there’d been a full day devoted to Officer Wilson’s thorough exoneration by the U. S. Justice Department. His behavior can be confidently defended. The city of Ferguson’s cannot.
Together, these cases were seen by a significant portion of the community as suspicions confirmed. Many people believe that such practices are a common part of policing in America. To be clear—police abuse does occur. Sometimes with tragic results. Those cases must be investigated and, if necessary, prosecuted aggressively, and victims should be compensated. But as a law enforcement professional with over four decades of experience, I can say that police abuse is a distinct aberration, not a systemic problem.
These cases do not represent typical police work. They are aberrations, not the rule. Police professionals should not—and must not—tolerate anything less than true professionalism.
* * *
This is a watershed time for modern policing, and those of us who care about the future of America need to respond accordingly. We have to take the challenges of the moment and mold them into long-lasting improvements. That’s how we as police get better. That’s how we as Americans build a better society for everyone.
The phenomena of cell phone cameras is a perfect opportunity. Everyone over ten years of age carries a camera now. That has undeniably altered the relationship between the community and the police. Whether police officers are evil-spirited ogres or have the best of intentions at all times, there is no denying this much: virtually every one of their actions can now be captured on a camera—a security camera, someone’s cell phone, or some other device. After I saw the brutal killing of Walter Scott in North Charleston, I became a believer in police officers wearing cameras. You would have to believe that no one required to wear a camera would commit such a dastardly act. That was a game-changer for me. Police officers should wear cameras, I am convinced.
The police are being photographed anyway. They often have little control over how those videos are used. In the long run, police are better off with their own records of how they have behaved. Plus, universal body camera use will help restore confidence and respect among the public and provide some balance too, reminding everyone that the worst cases of police behavior are not typical ones. I guarantee this: Those body cameras will record far more acts of selflessness and heroism than of official abuse. The good far outweighs the bad in police work. Let’s record it.
Role-playing exercises can also be helpful. They can become a larger part of training at the NYPD since a new $1 billion police academy was built during the Bloomberg administration. Police officers can act out challenging scenarios and learn from them.
On-the-job diversity will also help. Diversity isn’t a panacea. It won’t automatically make everyone get along. Minority cops can be bad cops just like white cops can. It’s always a mistake to judge an individual on an arbitrary factor such as skin color. That said, diversity makes the job easier. Life on the street is almost always smoother when the police roughly resemble the makeup of the community. It opens the department to fresh perspectives and new ideas. It shakes up the old ways of thinking. It makes the police seem less like an occupying army and more like a part of daily life. It also increases the chance that the people in uniform will actually know the people they are sworn to protect and to serve.
Since the 1960s, when people started discussing diversity and policing, some critics have warned that greater diversity would lead to lower standards, that a less white police force would be a less educated one as well. In New York City, we have found the opposite to be true. On average, the nonwhite candidates have arrived with more college credits, to use one standard, than the white candidates. You can speculate about why that might be. Do we attract different strata of different communities? Perhaps. But the fact remains that our minority candidates are pulling the education levels up—not down.
Some diversity may be obtained by consolidating smaller departments. There are simply too many police departments in the United States, many of them quite small. The majority of the departments in America have fourteen or fewer officers. That’s just too small, insufficient to afford much-needed specialized units and offer proper promotion opportunities.
For example, St. Louis County, where Ferguson is located, has ninety municipalities and fifty police departments. Surely higher professionalism and greater diversity could be attained by merging some of those little police departments. The federal government should encourage and facilitate such moves.
In the 1990s, New York’s independent Transit Police and Housing Authority Police were merged into the much larger NYPD. There was resistance at first. People in the two smaller forces liked running their own shops and, in some cases, were eager to protect their own power bases. But the results have been almost entirely positive: greater flexibility in staffing, fewer communication slipups, more training opportunities, wider career paths, deeper leadership expertise, less administrative duplication—the benefits are simply undeniable.
When major events happen in small jurisdictions, those departments must rely on mutual assistance from neighboring law-enforcement agencies. This can result in uncertainty over authority, rules of engagement, capabilities and accountability. We saw that confusion on display in Ferguson and in the apprehension of the Boston Marathon bombers. More joint training should be undertaken before the moment of need arrives, and the federal government ought to help pay for it.
Police departments everywhere should also be largely demilitarized. In 1994, with the best of intentions, the U.S. Department of Defense began dispersing surplus military equipment to police agencies across America. It was vehicles at first, Jeeps and Humvees, even a few armored weapons carriers. Once the program got started, the variety of equipment kept expanding. No one forced the police to use this stuff. But human nature being what it is, a Humvee sitting in a police station parking lot is extremely unlikely to remain there long. The optics were terrible. All that heavy hardware divided the police from the community.
In times of emergency—major storms, massive street disorders—the equipment can still be made available through state armories. But it shouldn’t be used on day-to-day patrols or in anything less than the direst of circumstances. And certainly not when common sense tells us it will only exacerbate tensions.
Police also need better education. I’ve been pushing for that since I got an inside view of the system in the Police Cadet Corps during my college days. Law enforcement and education do mix.
Serious thought should be given by major departments to requiring a four-year college degree for all police officers. Few departments require this today. It should be a basic, universal standard of policing. The job is different now—more complex, more subtle, more legalistic, more closely watched, more culturally diverse.
A four-year college degree is the very basic requirement for teachers across America. Many are expected to earn master’s degrees. Why should policing require any less? If that means we need to raise police salaries, so be it. The job of policing has become much more demanding with the use of technology, changing court decisions, and greater diversity. Departments should commit themselves to far more preemployment testing of applicants’ social interaction, particularly in the area of bullying. What is the psychological impact on candidates who have been bullied or have engaged in bullying? This may help departments identify potential problem officers.
Finally, law enforcement agencies have to be open to asking for help. Police need support from communities, from the street corners to the executive suites. If the police are going to be a part of the people—not just among the people or on top of the people—we need to engage productively with everyone. Briefings of community leaders before engaging in tactical operations can be an effective way of obtaining needed support. Involving community leaders in the development of programs and initiatives from the very beginning can also be helpful.
I was deeply heartened by the broad community support we got during my time at the NYPD, and I’m not just talking about the flattering poll numbers. I mean the casual comments and the stray remarks. The advice and the suggestions. The calls to the tip lines and the information on the street. The invitations to speak to community groups and the honest give-and-take when I got there. All of it said to me that we were in this together: the police, the people, everyone.
Police need that everywhere.
The causes of both terrorism and crime are undeniably complex. Terror comes from ancient hatreds merged with accessibility to modern weapons of destruction. Crimes often bubble out of social realities that go far deeper than policing. Many go back generations, even centuries. Poverty. Too few jobs. Too little education. Fractured family structures. Substance abuse. We have to address all those root causes, however far back they go. But I am not naive. That won’t happen tomorrow, and we cannot just wait around. We can’t simply shrug our shoulders and avoid the hard, daily decisions. What will prevent someone from being shot tonight? We need everyone to help.
We need rappers and sports stars sending out nonviolent messages—not glorifying criminality or committing crimes of their own. We need clergy organizing their congregations and preaching peace in the streets. We need business leaders providing jobs for the young getting started in careers. We need brilliant academics generating fresh ideas for fighting terrorism and traditional criminality. We need it all.
Law enforcement leaders are in a period of soul searching. They know that, as a profession, we’ve had some remarkable achievements countering terrorism and fighting crime. But they see the media’s coverage and hear all the debates, and they can’t help but wonder, Is that really what we’re doing as a profession, oppressing the people we are here to serve?
The answer is no, we aren’t. All around the country, fine police departments are doing the job they are supposed to. But all of us have to be careful that in the political swirl that surrounds us, we continue doing what we all do well.
We can’t, as some politicians are insisting, use this time to lighten up or tolerate more crimes and violations. The problem isn’t proactive policing. The problem isn’t that more of our resources are necessarily focused in certain neighborhoods where the crime is. The people in those neighborhoods are the ones who call us. They are the ones who need us most.
We have to continue doing what works best against the criminals, making sure we do it respectfully, thoughtfully, and legally. That’s a prescription for moving forward, not for giving up.
If we ease up on the things that made us successful, if we bow too much to the political pressures of the day, we are going to see more young people dying, more young lives lost before they’ve had a chance to live.
The sheer size of our mission can be daunting. At the NYPD, we calculated that we had twenty-three million citizen contacts per year. If even one-tenth of one percent of those contacts goes bad, that’s still a dramatic number. The activists and the media are always ready to pounce.
But we must not let our hearts grow weary. We must not pull back from the fight. We can’t withdraw to avoid the possibility of complaints. We can never send up the white flag of surrender in such important fights. Nothing less than the future of our country and our way of life is at stake.