The Death of American Policing

Did this widespread hatred for our police start with the death of George Floyd? For someone who has worked in law enforcement for 18 years, I say quite confidently that it began much earlier, for example, in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9th, 2014. I had been a police officer for about 8 years at this point in my career. Community/Police relationships were doing well for the most part before 2014. The racial scars involving high-profile police misconduct incidents from the 1990s had mostly healed. And then the prequel to George Floyd occurred involving a teenager named Michael Brown. Racial tensions and a collective, nationwide hatred for all police fired back up even stronger than the Rodney King incident and L.A. riots from 1991. The tensions were felt on the streets. Those inclined to break the law became much more brazen and less afraid to fight the police, and huge swaths of offenders decided they didn’t have to follow lawful orders from the police anymore.

As cops, we used to see our fellow citizens wave at us as we walked past or drove by. The waves quickly transitioned into middle fingers. I am not advocating for the blind support of all police officers and departments across the board. There are and have been horrible police officers all over the country. I’ve worked with many of them over the years.

On the flip side, many police officers are some of the best of all of us. They are incredibly smart men and women who genuinely care about the citizenry and want to serve their communities to the best of their abilities. What I am advocating for is support for the idea of restoring law and order in our country.

Fast Forward to 2020-present day.

Regarding the current Community/Police relationships in our country, the Rodney King and Michael Brown incidents look like peanuts compared to where we ended up after the George Floyd incident. The “hire the best possible candidates to become police officers” theory has been completely blown apart. Departments across the country are plagued with early retirements, low employment application numbers, and a general lack of highly qualified individuals yearning to enter into this type of service-related career path. Many friends and associates of mine have reported it’s even worse from inside the trenches. Good police officers are walking away early, while many have mentally checked out and just do the bare minimum to survive until retirement eligible. The only solution for departments to survive at this point is to lower hiring standards to fill positions. A career and passion which used to be noble, has now turned into a complete joke. Bright and well-spoken individuals with a good moral compass are now turning away from any thought about entering a career in law enforcement.

So how did the demonization of the police go into hyperdrive over several years? It’s painfully obvious to anyone with critical thinking skills who hasn’t been living under a rock: The mainstream liberal media propaganda machine has spread misinformation and selectively covered narrative-aligning portions of “stories” for instant adrenaline shock value before all the facts have been thoroughly evaluated. For months and months following the Ferguson and Minneapolis incidents, the mainstream media concentrated on the melanin content of the individuals involved rather than the actions they were fatally held responsible for. The media was successful in convincing tens of millions of simpletons that the police were actively hunting black men and executing them in the street.

In addition to the propagandist mouthpieces in the media, politicians and bureaucrats echoed the divisive narratives fueling race wars with the police at the center. City Councils, Mayors, Governor’s offices, and U.S. politicians aided in the “Defund the Police” movement. Police Departments all over the country are enacting systemic changes to their departments and policies within, making police officers less effective, and the criminal elements in the communities more bold.

In February, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson officially ended the city’s contract with ShotSpotter (a cutting-edge gunfire detection system). Johnson’s campaign website stated, “Brandon Johnson will end the ShotSpotter contract and invest in new resources that go after illegal guns without physically stopping and frisking Chicagoans on the street”. Johnson’s office and other City Council members debated racial biases potentially associated with technology such as ShotSpotter. In June of 2022, former Mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot directed a policy within the Chicago Police Department that drastically prevented her officers from engaging in foot pursuits with individuals who run from the police.

In Pittsburg, PA, Chief Larry Scirotto wants to reduce annual police calls for service in the city from 200,000 to just 50,000. Officers will now only respond to “in-progress emergencies”. Calls for criminal mischief, theft, harassment, and many others will now be handled by the telephone reporting unit or by online reporting.