U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) visited with Guthrie police officers on Friday to encourage them and show appreciation for their work, in light of the tragic ambush on police in Dallas late yesterday evening.
Lankford, who had already planned to be in Guthrie to meet with city leaders, says he heard the frustration from talking with Guthrie police officers.
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“These folks (police officers) are not here to hurt the public, they’re there because they want to serve people everyday,” Lankford said outside the police department. “It’s the frustration they feel they are the enemy. They’re not the enemy, they are our greatest ally in the community.”
Lankford spoke to the officers, along with Police Chief Don Sweger, in the department’s squad room before talking with the media.
“Today, I was grateful to meet with members of the Guthrie Police Department to thank them, and all law enforcement, for their work,” said Lankford. “Oklahomans grieve with the people of Dallas following the horrific ambush attack on Thursday night. During the shooting, even though the police were being shot at, they still protected the protestors in the midst of chaos. While everyone was running from the shooter, the police protected the protestors and the people. I admire that selflessness and courage. Moving forward, my hope is that America would come together to grieve this week’s loss of life, remember all the victims and their families, and press forward as one nation.”
The Senator, who was joined by Senator A.J. Griffin (R-Guthrie), Representative John Pfeiffer and City Manager Bruce Johnson, spoke about the horrific events in Dallas where five officers died and several others wounded following a Black Lives Matter protest.
“We are to quickly rushing to judgement to determine this is what the reason has to be, rather than getting all the facts out,” Lankford said on his initial reaction to the news in Dallas. “There is an immediate assumption that there’s some racial motivation, but once they do the full research and investigation (local, state and federal) they turn around later and find out no this really wasn’t’ race based at all. I hate for us to rush to judgement on any of these in any way.”
Lankford disagrees on no criminal charges filed on Hilary Clinton
Lankford was one of 10 senators in demanding Secretary of State John Kerry take action to make sure presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton and her aids “do not retain access to classified materials.”
The demand came after an FBI investigation found Clinton and her staff were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” according to FBI director James Comey. However, Comey recommended no criminal charges be brought against them.
Lankford said he “strongly” disagreed with criminal charges not being filed.
“About 48 hours ago, my office sent a letter to Secretary of State Kerry and asked him specifically to re-look again at the security clearances. Any person in national defense, any person in the intelligence community, any person who is a government contractor, if they deal with classified information and they took any of that classified information home with them, as Hilary Clinton did, they would lose their security clearance.”
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