Huntsville Police Officer Garrett Crumby was killed in the line of duty Tuesday, while Officer Albert Morin remains in critical condition.
Juan Robert Laws was taken into custody after a standoff with police. He is being charged with capital murder of a law enforcement officer.
Former U.S. Attorney Jay Town reacted to the news Wednesday during WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program.”
“It really is equal parts heartbreaking and infuriating,” Town said. “We had 331 officers shot last year – 62 were killed by gunfire. There were 89 ambush-style attacks like we saw yesterday.”
Town expressed frustration out how police are currently being treated by many in this country.
“This is what happens,” he saidd. “The flames toward our law enforcement have been stoked by people on the left and people that do not see law enforcement as a necessary part of our society … this vengeance toward law enforcement, whether it’s defunding or it is just sort of an aggravation toward them that you see on television, you see on the news, you just hear about colloquially about your friends that are in law enforcement … there’s no respect for our law enforcement with a fair segment of society. ”
The former U.S. Attorney emphasized how law enforcement officers are who keep communities safe.
“We slept last night safely because of the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, HPD, Madison Country Sheriffs, Madison PD, the rest of them,” he said. “We have to once again as a community in Huntsville … we have to suffer again in the state of Alabama and across the country another loss because, at least in part, it’s become acceptable for people at the end of their rope to become violent toward law enforcement.”
He also said there needs to be a real effort in our culture to combat the negative rhetoric against police in America.
“Any rhetoric that suggests even an iota of that violence, of that iota of that disrespect towards law enforcement, it needs to be not only tamped down, but smothered,” he said. “Because it is costing officers their lives. It is costing families their husbands, and their wives and their daughters and their sons. And it’s not acceptable.”
Town said he’s glad to see the community coming out in support of the Huntsville Police Department in the wake of this tragedy.
“(E)veryone at HPD and the Crumby family and the Morin family, they need to know that we support them,” he said, “and they’re in our thoughts and in our prayers and in the front of our minds, the back of our minds.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
