Earlier this month, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) questioned law enforcement officials on weapons use and regulations during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I now recognize Mr. Higgins, the Chairman of the Order Subcommittee, for five minutes.
00:07Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank our panelists for being here today.
00:14I'm honored and humbled to be a brother of the Thin Blue Line. Long ago, as a younger man,
00:23I served in the United States Army as a military police officer and then later in life
00:29as a civilian police officer in my home state of Louisiana for many years. I maintained my
00:37post-certification through the Louisiana State Attorney General's Office. I'm a cop as I sit
00:44in front of you today. This is a week in Washington, D.C., this bizarre realm of Washington,
00:52where there's a great cacophony of support across the political spectrums for law enforcement.
01:05You'll hear political testimony and agenda-driven questions like
01:12how to trick panelists into supporting red flag laws, where in the limited time available,
01:24you know, you just don't have the time or the venue here to go into it
01:29as to why we oppose such things. In actual existence, Mr. Suozzi has left the room, but
01:41in the state of Louisiana, we have the authority law enforcement
01:45who takes guns out of houses all the time under protective order, under investigation of an ongoing
01:53criminal allegation, and that property receipt is turned over to the spouse or whatever. Sometimes
02:04at the request of the spouse, you remove firearms from a residence. These laws and
02:12protections already exist. The problem is when you force them from the federal government
02:19into the sovereign states and municipalities. This is where you have major issues and
02:27infringement of Second Amendment rights. So, moving on, Mr. Bollick, you're from Austin,
02:37Texas, correct, sir? Yes, sir. And I would like for you to speak, if you don't mind,
02:44regarding the impact of the border crisis. You're a couple hundred miles from the border there,
02:51and we know, of course, that the invasion at the southern border, the disintegration
02:58of our sovereignty at the southern border has affected the entire country, but would you speak
03:04to the impact in your community that the border crisis has had in your city, your police department?
03:13It's had an impact, not just from a resource aspect.
03:17Our population continues to grow through a variety of different circumstances,
03:23but we've relied upon the state to help us, and the state's resources have had to be diverted
03:29to the southern border. We also have issues when it comes to identifying individuals,
03:34when it comes to following up when people report crimes or when people commit crimes.
03:39About response to complaints, 911 calls, response times. They continue to go up. We've
03:48struggled with that for several years now. So, your citizenry that's accustomed to having access
03:54to police assistance for things like domestic disturbances, break-ins, burglaries, etc.,
04:04suspicious people on their property, things of that nature. Are they having to wait because
04:11your officers and your deputies in your community are doing other stuff?
04:16Either wait or not get a response at all. There are numerous instances where we quit.
04:22Unfortunately, this is happening across the country. Sheriff Chapman,
04:26in my remaining 30 seconds, sir, would you touch on the impact of the cartel pipelines,
04:35human trafficking, and drug trafficking into your community?
04:42I would say that, as I mentioned before, the biggest problem that we've seen there is the
04:47fentanyl problem, which is impacting us. It's starting to impact our community at younger ages,
04:53and I think that's the biggest aspect that's represented by the open borders there with an
05:00increase in that. So, we are starting to see that. I think our crime rate is starting to
05:06tick up a little bit. We're still doing pretty good in our particular area, but it does concern
05:11me. The open borders and the impact that's happening across the country certainly is
05:17more significant, but in our community, we're still doing pretty well.
05:20Thank you, Sheriff. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.