Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is starting off the holiday season early.
Breitbart News reports that DeSantis just awarded $5,000 bonus checks to Cape Coral law enforcement officers.
DeSantis bonus check program
DeSantis announced the bonuses at a press conference that he gave in Cape Coral, Florida, on Friday.
This comes as part of Florida’s Law Enforcement Recruitment Program, which went into effect on July 1.
The program offers a $5,000 bonus check to a qualified out-of-state law enforcement officer who moves to Florida and becomes part of the state’s police force.
At the press conference, DeSantis specifically recognized six Cape Coral officers with $5,000 bonus checks. But, apparently, there are many more than these six bonus checks that will be going out.
DeSantis, in fact, said that, in addition to these six, there are 335 $5,000 bonus checks that are being dispatched.
“We understand the vital role”
If the bonus checks alone didn’t get the point across, DeSantis made his point in a statement that he gave at the press conference.
“We understand the vital, vital role that law enforcement plays in a situation like this [hurricane response], of course, because if you look at the people that were helping rescue folks, you had police officers, sheriff’s deputies, you had state agencies, [the]Coast Guard,” DeSantis said.
“But you also just have daily life – even apart from a spectacular disaster like we’ve just suffered – you want to have safe streets,” DeSantis continued. “You want to have safe communities. That used to be something in this country that we universally expected and had in most places.”
DeSantis went on to slam those parts of the country that “are operated almost like third world countries with the crime just totally out of control.” He noted that, “when that happens, the whole society starts to fray.” And, there is no doubt that many parts of the country are witnessing this firsthand.
It’s clear that DeSantis’s program here is working, that officers are moving from states where perhaps they are not valued as much – i.e. Democrat-run states – to Florida, which is making it known, under DeSantis’s leadership, law enforcement is highly valued – as it should be.