Former President Donald Trump attended the wake for NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller on Thursday, March 28, and during the wake spoke about the need for a return to “law and order.” He also offered his condolences to the slain officer’s family, meeting with his widow and 1-year-old son, along with other people close to the murdered officer.
As background, Officer Diller was murdered during a traffic stop on Monday, March 25. He and another officer pulled over a car and, while attempting to deal with a man in the vehicle, Officer Diller was shot by that individual. The bullet hit him below the bulletproof vest, in the stomach, and he died from his wound in the city’s Jamaica Hospital. The shooter had a lengthy rap sheet.
President Trump only gave brief remarks at the wake, saying that the murder of Officer Diller is the sort of awful tragedy that is happening far too frequently. “What happened is such a sad, sad event. Such a horrible thing, and it’s happening all too often and we’re just not going to let it happen, we just can’t,” Trump said during his remarks.
Continuing, he called for law and order and said that the current state of things is not working. He said, “But the Diller family will, you’ll never be the same, you can never be the same, but we have to stop it, we have to stop it. We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”
Further, Trump argued that the only, admittedly small, silver lining of the horrible tragedy is that perhaps the city and other cities will learn the lesson that releasing a career criminal time and time again is a bad idea and that we need to “toughen it up” to stop such horrific things from happening.
Speaking about that small silver lining and what lesson America needs to learn from the murder of Officer Diller, Trump said, “This is such a sad occasion. The only thing we can say is maybe something is going to be learned. We’ve got to strengthen it up, we’ve got to toughen it up.”
Watch President Trump speak about the murder of Officer Diller and call for law and order here:
In addition to speaking about Officer Diller’s murder at the wake, Trump posted about matter on Truth Social. Writing about the matter on Truth Social, Trump said, “Our heartfelt prayers go out to the family of highly decorated NYPD officer Jonathan Diller, whose life was taken by a murderous career criminal yesterday during a traffic stop in Queens.”
Continuing, he added, “The “thug” in question has 21 prior arrests and just recently got out of prison – he NEVER should have been let back out on the streets. To Officer Diller’s family, and all of the other brave men and women of law enforcement who put your lives on the line every day, we love you, we appreciate you, and we will always stand with you!”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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