To all Republican elected officials:
I am a former law enforcement officer who served for 27 years in Florida and many other parts of the United States. I served as a special agent for three federal agencies and retired from the Drug Enforcement Administration. I am active in three retired police officer associations and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and served as president of the Tampa chapter for 14 years. In total, these associations have more than 45,000 active members, many of whom reside in Florida.
![Robert Mazur stands in front of the private jet he used during his operations while working undercover within the Medellin cartel.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 620 827"/%3E "Robert Mazur stands in front of the private jet he used during his operations while working undercover within the Medellin cartel.")
We oppose President Donald Trump’s pardon for violent criminals who not only seriously injured law enforcement officers during the Capitol riot, but also caused serious injuries that subsequently led to the deaths of several police officers. We are united in that we do.
My colleagues and I are united in our disappointment that you have not publicly condemned pardoning these violent criminals. Their pardons will likely allow criminals from the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other paramilitary groups and thousands of their associates to assault and kill law enforcement officers for crimes that are likely to be immediately pardoned. It will send a message that this is the case.
Do you condemn amnesties for rioters who assaulted police officers? If you do not make it completely clear to the public that you condemn these pardons, you will permanently erode my vote, the votes of most of my brothers and sisters in active and retired law enforcement, and the votes of their families. will be lost. We will never forget this issue. There is no doubt that most of our nation’s more than 700,000 local law enforcement officers share our views.
I and most of my retired and active law enforcement colleagues have been registered Republicans for decades. This issue needs to be fully understood.
Robert Mazur, a former DEA agent, is the author of The Infiltrator, a memoir about the first half of his life undercover in Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel. He lives in Pinellas County.
