U.S. Senator Ken Salazar

Member: Agriculture, Energy, Veterans' Affairs, Ethics and Aging Committees

 

2300 15th Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO 80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

 

 

For Immediate Release

September 12, 2006

CONTACT:    Cody Wertz – Comm. Director

                        303-455-7600

Andrew Nannis  – Press Secretary

                        202-224-5852


  Sen. Salazar Introduces Amendment to Strengthen Homeland Security by Establishing a “Rural Policing Institute”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – United States Senator Ken Salazar today introduced a bipartisan amendment to establish a Rural Policing Institute (RPI) at the highly respected Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and Mark Pryor (D-AR) joined Senator Salazar in introducing the amendment to the Port Security bill currently being debated in the Senate this week as cosponsors.

The RPI would strengthen homeland security by authorizing $10 million nationally in 2007 and $5 million per year for 2008 – 2012 to develop and deliver training programs to rural and tribal law enforcement agencies with a focus on fighting meth’, domestic violence, and school violence.

“When I was the Attorney General of Colorado, I had the honor to work with some of America’s finest law enforcement officials – many of them from rural Colorado,” said Senator Salazar. “Today, the growing demands on rural and tribal law enforcement, and shrinking budgets, have hit training programs in rural America particularly hard. Many rural and tribal law enforcement agencies simply do not have the budget to provide officers with adequate training. More than half of Colorado’s 14,000 peace officers work in departments with 15 or fewer officers. This amendment will ensure that our rural, tribal and small town law enforcement officers have the training they need to protect themselves and their communities.”

FLETC would determine where training is most necessary and deliver training to those communities. FLETC is the premiere law enforcement training agency and also serves as the training hub for federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI, ATF, and the Secret Service.

Cheyenne County Sheriff Virgil Drescher added, “Rural law enforcement training is vital to this community. We don’t have the access to training programs that people in the big cities have. This bill would help considerably because we don’t have the manpower needed to take officers off the street and send them to training and because the costs of training are so high. We really need this in Colorado’s rural communities.”

# # #