Utterly awful policies and justice reforms instituted by politicos, forfeiting public safety to the detriment of everyone, are examples of reckless leadership abusing power and betraying the citizenry despite loud logic screaming “No, that will be disastrous!”
Recent years have cost lives, needlessly. Both citizens and cops found themselves pitted against a seemingly unrelenting tide of malevolence, culminating in a murder tally ticking skyward every day.
Politicizing is a cancerous cell, metastasizing and destroying anything in its pathway. Many of our cities morphed into war zones, largely due to the fileting of law enforcement institutions, thus ceding law-and-order principles to coddle cold and callous individuals.
Even liberal-leaning folks saw the writing on the wall and hightailed it to safer, more hospitable, less hostile environs. Major DIY relocation service providers, such as U-Haul, provided data depicting gobs of people moving from Wild West-like states to more conservative ones, where crime is not rampant, cops are supported and permitted to conduct public safety duties, and humans are not having to look over their shoulder 24/7.
(Photo courtesy of the Lakeland Police Department.)
Here is an example of how awful it has gotten in the metropolis of New York City, compliments of asinine laws and “reforms” that are antithetical to public safety:
“NYPD Detectives have been hampered by these laws since inception — and the DEA has been speaking out against it from the beginning. Lawmakers in Albany need to be more concerned about victims than the criminals who prey upon them. Fix the failures NOW!” That blurb was posted by the NYPD Detectives’ Endowment Association (DEA), in response to the following front cover of the New York Post (dated January 19, 2023):
Surreal, isn’t it? And this represents a report of a disastrous liberal-launched campaign to play soft-on-crime games with peoples’ lives. Exponentially, other cities of that ilk cloned the catastrophes born of poor policies pushed by the usual suspects playing politicians.
Boston is another example, whose police union stridently rebukes the political players and their cohort “activists” ruining a metropolis landmark by sacrificing their spine while implementing bad policies authored to make a few people warm and fuzzy.
From the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Union page: “When do we stop allowing anti-police activists to influence public safety efforts or decisions? If defunding the police wasn’t misguided enough, taking public safety professionals out of schools certainly was. Because of their failed plan, violence is on the rise and it’s becoming increasingly more dangerous for our kids to simply attend school. Enough is enough.
“The ‘Anything is Better than the Police’ plan has failed miserably. Why? Because [the] police were never the problem. And the numbers underscore the failure. Violence involving youth rose starkly in 2022 — with nearly double the number of minors arrested on firearms charges compared to 2021 — and a significant number of high-profile incidents at schools this term, including a recent beating of a Young Achievers teacher, has drawn widespread concern.
(Photo courtesy of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Union.)
“At some point, enough has to be enough. Stop playing politics with public safety. Stop diverting money into failed non-profits that claim to know more about community safety and violence interruption than those who actually do public safety for a living. Our kids deserve better.” The tone of police nowadays is warranted. So is atonement from reckless officials who kowtowed to all the woke philosophies.
Incidentally, the political powers that be in Boston did an about-face after the “Young Achievers beating” recently, now calling for cops in schools again. Such a flim-flam game, Such a shame. Such a waste. Such a tragedy that people were victimized due to complicit policymakers meddling where they shouldn’t.
“When do we admit taking cops outta schools was a colossal misstep and mistake? Our officers have always been and will always be committed to being part of the solution and keeping kids safe. And those who continue to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline theory to justify the demonization and decision to remove huge-hearted police officers who have worked tirelessly to keep kids outta trouble and outta the judicial system should apologize for the inexcusable distortion of what police officers in Boston actually do, stand for, represent and accomplish each and every day,” read a statement from Boston Police union administration.
That blurb goes for every law enforcement agency that has been needlessly pushed up against the ropes and treated contrarily, like a foe.
As our topic title today indicates, the grossly flawed political machinations devalued not only cops’ safety but everyone within the United States borders…at a significant price.
Merchants have moved out of crime-burdened cities whose elected ones paved the way for shoplifters to load up products without repercussions. Recently, a bunch of reports was published, examining the extreme measures of big-box retailers such as Walgreens resorting to locking up more products, requiring law-abiding customers to gain the attention of an employee with a key, or just shop elsewhere.
“It’s a quagmire for retailers: either they risk losing customers, or losing inventory,” the Business Insider reported. It didn’t have to be this way. Although shoplifting is not new, it reached epidemic proportions. Why wouldn’t it when there is an invitation to take what you want, freely?
Bold but not beautiful, we watched it play out via footage posted on TV news stations and social media conduits; San Francisco became an iconic locale where shoplifting was a mere walk in the park for sticky-fingered folks. That effect reverts to the cause: the political culprits who permitted the depth of anarchy to persist. Irresponsible, reckless policymakers. Wizards behind the curtain, except the yellow brick road runs red nowadays, both in terms of bottom lines and bloodletting.
I read some material claiming employees in these overrun cities were frightened by having to go to work, fearing blatant shoplifters and inherent perils where committing crimes is somehow acceptable. Many employees resigned, which factors into the already-understaffed businesses (pandemic) having fewer hands to handle sales and restocking shelves wiped out by thieves, making matters worse for both consumers and merchants trying to stay afloat. Even stay alive.
As for the rampant shoplifting sprees allowed by certain cities’ formulas of reform, businesses were compounded by having to hire civilian security officers, some of whom were also assailed by brazen kleptomaniacs acting under the carte blanche of government officials who took the “Help yourself” adage way too literal.
A report from the New York Post came out during the editing phase of this material. In it, Walgreens confirmed its hired security guards are instructed not to intervene in any shoplifting activities, clarifying security is only present as a visual deterrent. Unfortunately, another cost yet no discernible gains, equating to increased prices for consumers.
One of the more monstrous misdeeds birthed by public safety sellouts is the demoralization of cops by demonetizing the moving parts that enable police officers to suppress crime and ensure the sanctity of a diverse population striving for peace.
As National Police Association staff reported time and again, our nation is wrestling with a markedly diminished roster of law enforcement officers, understandably discouraged by the unrelenting budget hacking instituted by bizarre anti-law-and-order scripters.
As such, candidates to fill the burgeoning number of vacant police positions necessitated incentives beyond those used in ordinary times. Since these are not ordinary times, though, extraordinary measures are hitting the wire, with law enforcement recruitment units billboarding robust salaries, beefed-up health benefits, relocation packages, wellness enterprises, and other appealing feats.
Before drafting this material, an ideal example of police recruitment ingredients popped up, compliments of the Inglewood Police Officers Association in California looking for laterals (experienced cops from other agencies):
“The signing bonus of $40k is paid in two parts. Part 1 is paid upon swearing in. Part 2 is paid upon successfully completing probation (one year). However, if you are sworn in before July 1st, you’ll receive an additional 10k per our MOU [Memorandum Of Understanding]. That’s 50k in a year.”
That, on top of a base salary range of $87,658. – $106,960 per year. Granted, the cost of living in exorbitantly taxed California is different than in many other states. Nonetheless, one can imagine the exodus of cops from Cali amounts to law enforcement agencies there having to sweeten the pot of compensation, etc.
One thing I saw on the Inglewood Police Department website is that they still require all employees to have a full complement of Covid vaccinations, for employment consideration. Interpretively, that can be a detractor, and a cost of a different kind.
As a mere case study, Inglewood PD communicated its intent to rebuild its police force, saying, “For various reasons, most of our specialized units are depleted. We believe these units will be back up and revitalized in 2-4 years. These units include Special Enforcement Team, Motors, Traffic, FTO, Mental Health Unit, Transit Team, Community Resource Officers, Vice, Narcotics, and SWAT.”
Sounds like the backbone of every police agency —Patrol— is standing rather solo and somehow handling it all. At what cost, though?
Respectfully, what the Inglewood PD is describing is largely identical to what too many law enforcement organizations have become: a whittled-down version of a police force. It all stems from the defund-the-police instigators who cleaved cop budgets and discounted the expected adverse effects of that brusque brand of public safety betrayal.
As a former police chief, Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts, Jr., was cited in an NPR piece, indicating Butts felt “that cutting funding for departments fails to address the root problem, and would mean that people in local communities are less safe.”
Thus, the police recruitment materials announcing incentivized hiring programs, offering monetary appeal and funding assistance for housing and relocation expenses, are becoming more commonplace, designed to refund police forces devalued and diminished by the defund folly, exacerbated by the vaccine mandates which also led to terminations, resignations, and retirements of seasoned cops with years of public safety wisdom.
Our country’s abysmal debt at the present time is gargantuan, worsened by the enormous expenses caused by sordid political maneuvering having nothing to do with sustaining safe and secure locales. Cops were holding the short end of the stick without even reaching for it.
Of the many rigors of police academy training, firefighting principles are not necessarily the gist. However, cops are also adept at putting out Dumpster fires created by people who have never pinned a badge and preach to public safety professionals about how The Job oughta be done.
(Photo courtesy of the Seal Beach Police Department.)
As they always manage to do, law enforcement institutions balance the brunt of battles and forge forward regardless of dire straits and calamitous circumstances not of their own making.