Seymour City Council showed support and appreciation for local law enforcement recently by signing legislation seeking better protection for men and women who wear a police uniform.
Resolution 18, Council Bill 41, states officers with the Seymour Police Department along with other members of the Donald M. Winn Lodge 108 Fraternal Order of Police in Seymour and officers across the country wear their uniforms with “honor, dedication and integrity,” as they protect and serve their communities.
Councilman Dave Earley introduced the resolution during a council meeting last Monday, explaining why it is needed in light of recent national events involving the shooting deaths of several police officers.
“Basically this is giving our support to our uniformed officers, realizing that in recent years, wearing that uniform that they also have a bulls-eye on them,” Earley said. “We have to let the citizens of Seymour know that we stand with the families of the fallen officers throughout the United States.”
The resolution states the city agrees with national and local FOP efforts to get Washington to work to address violence against police officers by expanding federal hate crime laws to protect police, reauthorize the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program and to fully fund state and local law enforcement assistance programs that provide officers with the resources and equipment they need to do their jobs safely.
Detective Sgt. C.J. Foster with Seymour Police and president of the local FOP, attended the meeting and thanked the council for standing together with law enforcement here, across Jackson County and the country.
“We really appreciate your support,” he said. “Everybody knows we have a hard job; it’s not easy.”
Earley said he recently talked with Officer Rick Meyer with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, who was shot in the line of duty in the spring of 2014.
Although violence against police doesn’t happen often around here, Earley said Meyer is an example that it can.
“We hear it happening around the big cities, but it happens here too,” he said. “It’s getting closer to home, and I think that opened my eyes to what the officers are actually going through. So any little thing we can do as far as recognizing this and giving them our support, I think it’s well deserved.”