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We agree with Joseph Regan, president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Pennsylvania.
"It's time for America to return, once again, to putting the safety of the public -- and those who protect them -- first," Regan wrote in an op-ed column in Wednesday's edition of the Sun-Gazette. "The heroes who've already died -- and those who continue to put it on the line every day -- deserve nothing less."
Regan, in the column, advocated for a bill offering federal enhancements to prosecution and sentencing when criminals violently ambush law enforcement.
As recent violent crimes in Williamsport and its suburbs reflect, we as a society ask a lot of our police. We should expect our lawmakers and other elected officials to be dedicated to making their important work in investigating such awful crimes as easy and as free from distraction and fear as they can.
We believe what state Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, recently told us is also correct: that people in our region still largely support their communities' police officers.
We hope our lawmakers in Washington, D.C., can follow the lead of our neighbors in supporting police officers and pass the bill Regan is endorsing. We also hope that tougher sentencing will be an effective deterrent to the efforts by criminals to inflict terror on our police officers and on our communities as a whole.
Regardless, we are confident that tougher punishment for these crimes is warranted.
-- Williamsport Sun-Gazette