The moral in the city of Minneapolis police department is lower than it’s ever been and many officers are on their way out the door:
NY TIMES – Nearly two months after four of its officers were charged with killing George Floyd, the Minneapolis Police Department is reeling, with police officers leaving the job in large numbers, crime surging and politicians planning a top-to-bottom overhaul of the force.
Veteran officers say that morale within the department is lower than they have ever experienced. Some officers are scaling back their policing efforts, concerned that any contentious interactions on the street could land them in trouble. And many others are calling it quits altogether.
“It’s almost like a nuclear bomb hit the city, and the people who didn’t perish are standing around,” Officer Rich Walker Sr., a 16-year Minneapolis police veteran and union official, said of the mood within the department. “I’m still surprised that we’ve got cops showing up to work, to be honest.”
Post-traumatic stress:
Nearly 200 officers have applied to leave the Minneapolis Police Department because of what they describe as post-traumatic stress, said Ronald F. Meuser Jr., a lawyer representing the officers. The prospect that a department of about 850 could lose about 20 percent of its force in the coming months has prompted major concern.
Already, about 65 officers have left the department this year, surpassing the typical attrition rate of 45 a year, Chief Medaria Arradondo told the City Council during a meeting last week. Dozens of other officers have taken temporary leave since Mr. Floyd’s death, complicating the staffing picture.
“Do no harm”
Cmdr. Scott Gerlicher, head of the Special Operations and Intelligence Division, wrote in an email to supervisors this month that, “Due to significant staffing losses of late,” the department was “looking at all options” for responding to calls, including shift, schedule and organizational changes.
The email, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, also said the department would not “be going back to business as usual.” The guiding principle going forward, Commander Gerlicher wrote, would be to “do no harm,” and he highlighted potential reforms, including, “Looking for reasonable and safe alternatives to police services in some areas.”
“Front line supervisors play the most critical role in making meaningful changes,” he wrote. “Don’t take this lightly.”
I completely understand there being ton of stress that Minneapolis police officers have to deal with, and much of it likely has to do with their radical leftist overlords looking for any reason to prosecute a cop. They simply don’t trust the system anymore, a system that’s supposed to be there to protect them since they are putting their lives on the line to keep people safe. Police have truly become the enemy to these radical leftists and unless people rise up and vote these Democrats out of office, these cities are going to turn into stuff of nightmares. And then many of those people will leave Minneapolis and move to Republican cities, where they will start voting for the same radical leftists all over again. There are some days that I just don’t see a bright future for America.