The Memphis 5

[Tackleberry40sw]

That's because college admissions are not what they once were.

Everyone gets a participation diploma these days.

Here's an example.............

[Hambo]

I find it darkly humourous that I think I've never met a person who wouldn't agree with the following statement:

"If you want better kitchen staff in your restaurant, you need to pay more and offer better conditions to increase the pool of highly desirable applicants, and then be selective about who you hire."

But the response to having problems in policing is very often "we need to lower hiring standards to broaden the pool of applicants, and cut their pay and increase personal liability until they get the message."

The problem with your line of thought is that admin/public don't want better policing. City admin usually wants to change the racial/ethnic makeup of the department, and vocal public groups want different outcomes in various LE situations. Together, they want different police doing less traditional policing.

[the Schwartz]

The problem with your line of thought is that admin/public don't want better policing. City admin usually wants to change the racial/ethnic makeup of the department, and vocal public groups want different outcomes in various LE situations. Together, they want different police doing less traditional policing.

Of course. The desired goal (attempting to sail with the prevailing societal winds of the day...wokeness, some specific type of ''justice'', etc.) which seems to be especially prominent in the larger metropolitan agencies, is incongruent with the task (enforcing the laws as they are written). Societal trends/movements, because they require no lengthy due process, move faster than the legal framework of our nation ever can. Therefore, the profession of law enforcement will always be viewed as being ''wrong'' and/or ''evil'' because it cannot possibly change fast enough to keep pace with the changes (most of them idiotic or poorly thought out at best) that our society is presently undergoing.

All this will eventually come to an end when it gets ''bad enough''--whenever and whatever ''bad enough'' might be.

[Gadfly]

I think this is it. With both LE and Mil, an environment has been created that is nearly intolerable for those who joined for the right reasons. Those folks are leaving in droves, only to be replaced by.... who? I believe this is by design. You have to break the old system to create a new one. This is what is being done.

I just spent a little under 8 months at FLETC. Most classes I interreacted with were a mix. About half were prior LE/MIL elsewhere and were pretty squared away before they got hired. The other half could be split again, into those with no experience, but were eager to learn and at least put forth effort, while the remaining group was there for... i don't know why they were there. Optics I assume.

When you have to have the conversations about setting up a duty belt, and someone raises their hand an needs help to thread items onto the belt because they chipped a nail? Seriously? A few were far more worried about hair and makeup than learning the job. Half the females came to class with short unpolished nails, hair up in a tight bun, no make up, and ready to work. The other half came to look cute and post pic on Instagram of all the cool police type stuff they get to do now. Its not just females, we have a few males that seem to not comprehend that LE is a contact sport. We could get more switched on people of all genders, but that does not seem to be a priority.

Its a strange new world out there. Some folks have never been punched squarely in the nose, and it shows. I think our Firearms program at Fletc was outstanding. But at least half of the folks have never been in a fist fight at all, and will be completely unable to physically subdue a combative subject. Its a disservice to the public and the agents to put someone out in the field who is not prepared for the job. But we do it.

The only solace I have is knowing many agents will never leave their desk, and will be admin types forever (then they will promote and tell the grunt agents how to do the things they never did).

[Totem Polar]

I just spent a little under 8 months at FLETC. Most classes I interreacted with were a mix. About half were prior LE/MIL elsewhere and were pretty squared away before they got hired. The other half could be split again, into those with no experience, but were eager to learn and at least put forth effort, while the remaining group was there for... i don't know why they were there. Optics I assume.

When you have to have the conversations about setting up a duty belt, and someone raises their hand an needs help to thread items onto the belt because they chipped a nail? Seriously? A few were far more worried about hair and makeup than learning the job. Half the females came to class with short unpolished nails, hair up in a tight bun, no make up, and ready to work. The other half came to look cute and post pic on Instagram of all the cool police type stuff they get to do now. Its not just females, we have a few males that seem to not comprehend that LE is a contact sport. We could get more switched on people of all genders, but that does not seem to be a priority.

Its a strange new world out there. Some folks have never been punched squarely in the nose, and it shows. I think our Firearms program at Fletc was outstanding. But at least half of the folks have never been in a fist fight at all, and will be completely unable to physically subdue a combative subject. Its a disservice to the public and the agents to put someone out in the field who is not prepared for the job. But we do it.

The only solace I have is knowing many agents will never leave their desk, and will be admin types forever (then they will promote and tell the grunt agents how to do the things they never did).

Damn. That’s a sobering report.

[blues]

If you whup somebody enough
They'll follow wherever you go
That's how I got to Memphis
That's how I got to Memphis


(Apologies to Tom T. Hall)

[RJflyer]

I'm curious to see if a new trend will emerge in more liberal states and large cities, where proactive patrol would just be eliminated altogether. Replace traffic enforcement with mass implementation of CCTV, like you see in many other countries. Either ignore or hand off calls related to mental health, transient issues, drug possession/use to some non-police entity. All with the intent of keeping the cops locked up at the station until an in-progress violent crime is reported. Similar to how fire sits at the station until dispatched.

From an admin's perspective, this would somewhat alleviate an agency's struggles to recruit/retain enough truly qualified officers. And more important for the agenda...it would result in significantly fewer contacts between police and citizens. Fewer contacts will inherently result in fewer UoF incidents. Fewer UoF incidents will result in less risk of an agency ending up in national headlines for the wrong reasons.

Its been a few years since I was a patrol cop. We were encouraged to be proactive, go out and find dope, find stolen vehicles, find people with warrants, etc. I'm not sure how common that attitude is today, much less how common it will be in five years or so.

[Joe in PNG]

I'm curious to see if a new trend will emerge in more liberal states and large cities, where proactive patrol would just be eliminated altogether. Replace traffic enforcement with mass implementation of CCTV, like you see in many other countries. Either ignore or hand off calls related to mental health, transient issues, drug possession/use to some non-police entity. All with the intent of keeping the cops locked up at the station until an in-progress violent crime is reported. Similar to how fire sits at the station until dispatched.

From an admin's perspective, this would somewhat alleviate an agency's struggles to recruit/retain enough truly qualified officers. And more important for the agenda...it would result in significantly fewer contacts between police and citizens. Fewer contacts will inherently result in fewer UoF incidents. Fewer UoF incidents will result in less risk of an agency ending up in national headlines for the wrong reasons.

Its been a few years since I was a patrol cop. We were encouraged to be proactive, go out and find dope, find stolen vehicles, find people with warrants, etc. I'm not sure how common that attitude is today, much less how common it will be in five years or so.

It's also a way to pretend that crimes are down.

[Borderland]

I'm curious to see if a new trend will emerge in more liberal states and large cities, where proactive patrol would just be eliminated altogether. Replace traffic enforcement with mass implementation of CCTV, like you see in many other countries. Either ignore or hand off calls related to mental health, transient issues, drug possession/use to some non-police entity. All with the intent of keeping the cops locked up at the station until an in-progress violent crime is reported. Similar to how fire sits at the station until dispatched.

From an admin's perspective, this would somewhat alleviate an agency's struggles to recruit/retain enough truly qualified officers. And more important for the agenda...it would result in significantly fewer contacts between police and citizens. Fewer contacts will inherently result in fewer UoF incidents. Fewer UoF incidents will result in less risk of an agency ending up in national headlines for the wrong reasons.

Its been a few years since I was a patrol cop. We were encouraged to be proactive, go out and find dope, find stolen vehicles, find people with warrants, etc. I'm not sure how common that attitude is today, much less how common it will be in five years or so.

A good example of what you just described happened in Seattle during the summer of 2020. Police just turned over a few blocks of the city to protesters/agitators/arsonists.

I guess it works for awhile but long run I have my doubts. Property owners and businesses move out if there's no police presence. That happened.

Because of the reaction by the city council and the mayor to defund the police, Seattle is no longer considered a good employment opportunity by prospective candidates even though the city upped the ante. There just isn't enough money. Eventually they'll have to lower the standards (people in your class) to get any recruits. All the vets retired or moved on.

[Joe in PNG]

A good example of what you just described happened in Seattle during the summer of 2020. Police just turned over a few blocks of the city to protesters/agitators/arsonists.

I guess it works for awhile but long run I have my doubts. Property owners and businesses move out if there's no police presence. That happened.

But has that actually been all that much of a motivation for those governments to do much of anything?