Biden Sends More Money To Police, Police Counseling Act Provides Therapy Resources For Trauma. Photo: President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden speak to Jimmy Holderfield, National Secretary of the Fraternal Order of Police, second from left, and James Smallwood, National Treasurer of the National Fraternal Order of Police, left, as they are to place flowers on a wreath during a ceremony honoring fallen law enforcement officers at the 40th annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Oct. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Without much fanfare, President Joe Biden signed a new bill to provide more money to law enforcement agencies for mental health counseling and therapy resources to deal with on-the-job trauma.
On Nov. 18, Biden signed the COPS Counseling Act, which stands for Confidentiality Opportunities for Peer Support Counseling, to provide more mental health resources to first responders. Meanwhile, the police reform bill, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021, went nowhere.
In a press conference about the COPS bill, Biden compared being in law enforcement to being a soldier in war. “It’s not fundamentally different than being on the battlefield,” he said.
COPS was introduced in April by Sen. Cortez Masto, a Democrat who has represented Nevada since 2017. Mastro was the 32nd attorney general of Nevada from 2007 to 2015.
The bill requires the Department of Justice to require peer support counseling programs provided by a law enforcement agency that gives counseling services from a peer support specialist to a law enforcement officer of the agency, NBC 12 reported.
COPS wasn’t well received by some on Twitter.
“Killing people takes a toll on mental health,” @diettrade tweeted.
Fatal police shootings in the U.S. have been increasing, with 716 civilians shot in 2021, including 111 Black people, as of October 2021, according to Statista. In 2020, there were 1,021 fatal police shootings, compared to 999 fatal shootings in 2019. The rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other group — 37 fatal shootings per million of the population as of October 2021.
Some Twitter users weren’t surprised that Biden pushed the bill through. “This is the result of when you elect two cops into the white house,” tweeted AHUS @AmericaHatesUs.
Biden also signed the Protecting America’s First Responders Act of 2021, which provides increased access to benefits for those disabled in the line of duty.
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