After backing Trump, police group backs Democrat Ruben Gallego for Senate

Just days after endorsing former President Donald Trump on stage in Glendale, the Arizona Police Association said Monday it was backing Democrat Ruben Gallego for the state’s U.S. Senate race.

The APA, which represents thousands of law enforcement officers in Arizona, had endorsed Republican Kari Lake during her 2022 gubernatorial campaign but praised Gallego for backing $168 billion in support for police and for his military background as a Marine combat veteran.

The shift away from Lake this time, however, comes after Lake called her former Republican Senate challenger, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, “a total coward” during a candidate forum in May.

The APA endorsement could hand Gallego a notable defense against Lake’s routine charges that he sought to “defund the police” and was a “rubber stamp” for policies under the Biden administration that she claims have led to a rise in crime.

Violent crime has fallen in 69 of the nation’s largest cities in the first half of the year, according to figures from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

“As a Marine combat veteran, we know Congressman Gallego understands the complexities of modern policing in American society today, while at the same time recognizing the public’s expectations,” said Justin Harris, president of the APA, in a statement announcing the endorsement.

The APA singled out Gallego’s support for measures allowing local authorities to use federal funds for recruitment and retention pay and for providing benefits to families of officers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Harris praised Trump during an 11-minute endorsement on stage with Trump standing behind him at Friday’s rally in Glendale.

Gallego’s statement thanking the APA noted their shared goal of community and officer safety. It also said he wants to ensure officers “have the resources necessary to combat fentanyl trafficking, train the next generation of officers, and, above all, keep Arizona families safe.”

Lake has made the scourge of fentanyl overdoses a major theme of her campaign and argued that law enforcement hasn’t had a reliable partner under Democrats.

In a statement Monday, the Lake campaign said Gallego “supported defunding the police and vilified law enforcement while serving in Congress. He supports open borders and is weak on crime. Kari Lake will always back the blue and support law enforcement and safe communities.”

It is a reference to some of Gallego’s activities around the early days of protests after the 2020 slaying of Minneapolis resident George Floyd at the hands of police that triggered a national reckoning on race.

In June 2020, Gallego noted in a social media post that “Peaceful protestors aren’t bad guys, they are citizens. The bad guys were the ones behind the police line not in front of them.”

In an interview on MSNBC about the same time, Gallego said American police had not been trained in using some of the weapons used in war zones like that which he used in urban combat in Iraq.

They “don’t know how to use this in a proper manner and a safe manner. And also, to a certain degree, it’s just not necessary. Our streets are not combat zones, our police are not the military,  our civilians are not combatants,” he said.

Lake’s campaign touts the backing, for example, of the Arizona Law Enforcement Association, the Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs and the Phoenix Police Sergeants and Lieutenants Association.

But she alienated some in law enforcement with her personal comment about Lamb.

Lake attacked Lamb while she argued she had fought for “election integrity” for making the baseless claim that her 2022 gubernatorial loss and Trump’s 2020 election loss owed to fraud. Lamb, she said during the online event, didn’t do anything about the problem.

“There’s not many people who have the ability to fight. I took every hit fighting for security in our elections. Sheriffs have the ability to fight, and the sheriff of Pinal County cowered. He’s a total coward when it comes to election integrity.”

Nine of the state’s 14 other county sheriffs later joined in a statement condemning Lake’s remark.

“Kari Lake’s recent comment calling Sheriff Mark Lamb a ‘coward’ is both unfounded and disrespectful. We want to make it clear: neither Sheriff Mark Lamb nor any law enforcement officer who wears a badge and uniform, putting the life on the line every day to protect and serve our communities, is a coward. Arizona voters expect better from a political candidate, especially when they are running for the U.S. Senate.”

The statement was signed by: Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, Gila County Sheriff Adam Shepard, Graham County Sheriff P.J. Allred, La Paz County Sheriff William Ponce, Maricopa County Sheriff Russ Skinner, Mohave County Sheriff Doug Schuster, Navajo County Sheriff David Clouse, Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes and Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot.

For his part, Lamb responded to Lake at the time by saying she didn’t complain about election problems in her race until she lost the 2022 gubernatorial election while he hunted for evidence of widespread fraud in his county.

“I don’t think Joe Biden got 81 million votes, but I don’t live in the world of feelings and thoughts,” he said. “I live in the world of evidence, what you can prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt. Any one of these people, including Kari, or any one of them could have brought me the evidence that was actionable in court for me to do something about it.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: After backing Trump, police group backs Democrat Ruben Gallego for Senate