McAllen police chief on ambush killing of two officers: Our community is hurting
McAllen, Texas Police Chief Victor Rodriguez speaks out on 'Fox & Friends' after the tragedy.
McAllen, Texas, Police Chief Victor Rodriguez told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday that his “community is hurting” following the ambush killing of two police officers over the weekend.
The slain McAllen officers were identified as Edelmiro Garza, 45, and Ismael Chavez, 39. The gunman killed himself after engaging in a shootout with other responding officers, The Monitor of McAllen, Texas, reported.
“We are in shock,” Rodriguez said. “Our department is weakened for the moment, but we will manage and we will continue the mission that is policing in our city and keeping our city safe.”
Rodriguez explained that the two officers were killed in a “domestic disturbance call turned violent against police officers.”
Rodriguez said Garza is a 15-year veteran with the city of McAllen, first serving as a dispatcher for about six years and then as a police officer for nine. He said Chavez was an officer for two-and-a-half years, adding that he was “an educator prior to being an officer.”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that there were 11 police officers killed since George Floyd's death in Minneapolis.
Patrick said Floyd's death, which happened while a police officer knelt on the back of his neck, "should never have happened" but that the backlash against police is going too far.
2 TEXAS POLICE OFFICERS KILLED IN AMBUSH ATTACK, AUTHORITIES SAY
On Tuesday, Rodriguez said he thinks “it's very important to note” that “nothing in what we've seen so far about our situation connects, links or otherwise to any of the narratives that we are hearing out there.”
“We are saddened by those narratives, we wish they were not so, but police officers are blind to that,” he said. “They rise to go help citizens in distress and Saturday was no different.”
“Here was a family who was requesting our help to deal with a family member, we went there, we knocked on the door and we lost two officers,” Rodriguez continued.
On Tuesday, Rodriguez also reacted to the growing push to defund or dismantle police departments across the country following the death of Floyd in May.
Rodriguez said he encourages different points of view explaining that people “can toss these ideas around, but at the end of the day, what we have right now is a policing system that's the best in the world.”
He acknowledged that “it's not flawless because we are human beings and we, human beings make mistakes and do bad things, but there isn't a better system out there that we know of in the world.”
He added that he encourages the debate and discussion about “these ideas about defunding and other things” to continue.
Rodriguez went on to say that he thinks “if it is done fairly, they will find that the policing system that we have in the country is the best there is and I cannot imagine someone knocking on the door like we were trying to do on Saturday, that is anything less than a police officer and be safer.”
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Fox News’ Joshua Nelson and Nick Givas contributed to this report.
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