My son is a retired police officer from the Twin Cities' area. He retired at a young age not because of the perils of the work but because the job had changed so much and not in a good way. In a conversation I had with him recently he told me, "There is no respect for police anymore in a lot of locations." He went on to say it wasn't just police officers; there is just no respect for authority period. Police officers are just being made the poster child for this attack on authority.
The net result of this will be less and less people wanting to get into law enforcement and those who do, may be there for all of the wrong reasons but will be accepted for duty because there is no alternative. The education requirements, the sacrifice by their families as they become ostracized right along with the officers, and the feeling of being despised by those they serve, makes it not worth the money or the effort.
In most cases police officers are not given free reign to police as they see fit and they shouldn't be. But in today's world they are micromanaged not by their bosses so much as by the public and the media. The cameras are always on them, just waiting for them to screw up.
There is no one anywhere that does their job perfectly and never makes mistakes. But most of the time those mistakes are charged to the individual making them and not to the whole profession. Police officers are all too often, guilty by association.
This is the tip of the iceberg. Teachers, clergy, judges and many other professions, put in place for our own good, are being challenged. The end result will be chaos.
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Mike Holst
Crosslake
