Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday announced $5,000 bonuses to Cape Coral law enforcement officers, showing once again that his administration values its officers amid leftist calls to defund the police.

“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,” he said, noting that the response “spanned the gamut.”

“But you also just have daily life — even apart from a spectacular disaster like we’ve just suffered — you want to have safe streets. You want to have safe communities,” he said. “That used to be something in this country that we universally expected and had in most places,” he continued, noting that the sentiment has eroded, “particularly over the last few years.”

“You have some places in this country that are operated almost like third world countries with the crime just totally out of control. … When that happens, the whole society starts to fray,” he continued before announcing the latest efforts his administration is making to champion law enforcement, as many police do not have the support of politicians and their communities.

“Morale is very low, and we’ve seen the morale — really since the Floyd riots — has been probably the lowest we’ve seen in a long time. And so we saw an opportunity in Florida to say, you know, we want to reward people who are going into this profession. We want to value people that are going into this profession,” he said, announcing the latest recruitment efforts in the Sunshine State:

So if you’re coming from one of those states or one of those other cities where you’re not being treated well and you come to take a job in any of our departments … you qualify for a $5,000 bonus and not just for people coming from out of state. If you have new people within Florida who have not been in law enforcement and they make the decision to go into law enforcement, they are also eligible for the bonuses that we were able to enact. And so, you know, there’s some places where law enforcement’s targeted. We’re doing the $5,000 dollar bonus here, which is going out in a much better direction. I think people appreciate it. So we have folks here today that are gonna be rewarded with these $5,000 bonus checks.

“And so they all came on board Cape Coral PD sometime this year. Some of them only a couple months ago, they got a baptism by fire having to go through Hurricane Ian,” he added, offering six bonus checks to officers who came from New York, Maryland, and Georgia, as well as locals.

“These are gonna be the first, so the legislature passed the law in the session. I signed it. It took effect July 1,” he added.

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