South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski has released the following statement regarding the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis:

Reflecting on the actions taken by former officers in Minnesota and absorbing the messages our community made over the weekend and previously, I feel it is finally the right time to express my thoughts.

Let me be clear, I am sickened and quite frankly disgusted by what I too witnessed by the former officers in Minnesota. We have never trained that way nor will we ever, and any or all of the other officers should have stepped in. Any ounce of human decency would have and should have been enacted to stop what occurred.

I absolutely agree there are daily injustices in our country and have been for decades, even
centuries. From employment to housing to education and yes, policing. I know some people say or think all cops are bad, that simply is not true.

What is true, we need to do a better job of weeding out the bad ones. If good cops know there are bad ones, I rhetorically ask, where are those good cops? Granted, nobody can know what every cop is doing 24/7/365, but other cops do. If they are silent, they are worse. If they stay silent, the silence grows.

The bad ones allow the true meaning of the “thin blue line” to be wrongfully used against those who not only believe in what it stands for, but live (and died) for what it means; that thin line between order and chaos, that ‘line’ of help to those who need it and count on us to give it anything contrary is not only a disservice to the badge, it’s also hypocritical to the sworn oath we all took, and finally it’s just plain wrong.