"You want to make attacking a cop the ultimate crime and the punishment should be as harsh as possible," said Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. "You can make everybody safer and you may save a few cops' lives."

The experts lauded the Daily News' Stop Crimes Against Cops campaign, which seeks to increase penalties for those who attack cops.

Bruce Mendelsohn of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said there is an inescapable nationwide link between tough penalties and a decline in police shootings.

"I can only point to the data that suggests sentences are a deterrent," Mendelsohn said. "Fewer officers have died, and we attribute that in part to tougher sentences."

The Fraternal Order of Police and other police groups also back a federal death penalty law for all cop killers, but the measure is bottled up in Congress.

Part of the goal of enacting harsher sentences is to put the word out on the streets that there are grave consequences for cop killers and anyone who would harm an officer.

"Tough penalties are important. There's one thing you can be sure of - it might affect some of the criminals," said Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation. "If it affects even one of them, then it's worth it."

Not everyone agrees that tougher sentences automatically lead to less crime against cops.

"It's an unproven assertion," Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, who opposes the death penalty as unreliable and immoral. "In most cases, criminals are not deterred by the longer sentences."

But Rushford insisted that society should demand the harshest possible penalties for anyone who would harm a cop who is protecting all of us.

"The people of New York need to make a decision about what they want to do to someone who tries to hurt or kill a police officer," Rushford said. "Anyone who would take out a cop will kill anyone. You really don't want that person out there."

Originally published on December 13, 2005