Former San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy Meagan
McCarthy suffered PTSD after a suspect stole her gun and tried to kill
her. Even though the struggle was captured on video, her attacker was
acquitted of attempted murder charges. She was forced to retire and now
says she hopes her children become firefighters rather than joining law
enforcement.
Police departments across the country are warning of a recruiting and
retention crisis while morale among officers plummets and progressive
prosecutors are repeatedly criticized for going after law enforcement
more enthusiastically than they go after criminals.
They're
also struggling with early departures of young officers who are fed up
with the stress, the scrutiny and what they see as a lack of support
from their superiors.
Meagan McCarthy was a San Bernardino County
sheriff's deputy before a near-death encounter with a violent suspect
forced her into retirement. She said she always wanted to work for the
public's benefit and attended nursing school before she went on a police
ride-along that changed her life.
"The biggest takeaway that I honestly had from law enforcement … you
really were the line between good and evil," she told Fox News Digital.
"We responded to things that if the cops wouldn't have gotten there when
they did, it would be horrible situations for people on top of already
dangerous situations."
She thrived – at first. Now she says she hopes her three children choose
not to follow her and her husband's footsteps and choose another
profession – like fighting fires.
"I took a lot of pride in being a cop," she said. "I love serving the
community, and I just wish that law enforcement was able to get that
pendulum swinging back for them."
But her career ended after a schizophrenic suspect nearly killed her
with her own gun, and a California jury let him off. She suffered
post-traumatic stress and medically retired in 2022, she said.
McCarthy was the first deputy to respond to a "priority 1" call
involving Ari Young, who rushed her as she approached the house,
pummeled her to the ground and took her sidearm.
A neighbor captured the chaos on cellphone video. Young scrambled to
fire multiple shots, none of which struck her. Still, the struggle left
her with a broken hand and black eye.
Backup arrived moments later, and deputies arrested him on the spot –
but jurors later found him not guilty of attempted murder. McCarthy
calls his lenient treatment the "Minneapolis Effect."
Former Minneapolis
Police Officer
Derek Chauvin was convicted of second- and third-degree murder for
George Floyd’s death in April 2021. On November 24, 2023, a fellow
inmate in a federal prison in Arizona stabbed him 22 times, leaving him
severely injured
In
this image from surveillance video, Minneapolis police Officers from
left, Tou Thao, Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane are
seen attempting to take George Floyd into custody in Minneapolis,
Minnesota on May 25, 2020.
"I am very thankful that there are still men and women out there willing
to do the job," she told Fox News Digital. "My husband still works for
the department. I have tons of friends that do it. However, knowing what
I know now, it would be really hard for me to go and serve the
institution of law enforcement, just because the politicians, the
elected officials, our leaders do not have our backs."
Not only do law enforcement officers have to worry about their physical
safety, she said, they also have to worry about their livelihoods.
"You have to worry about these leaders coming after you years down
the road," she said. "We're seeing all of these crazy woke district
attorneys opening up cases years later. . . . Is my family going to be
able to afford a mortgage if something happens to me later down the
line?"
Taylor Marino, a former NYPD officer, said he traded in his uniform and badge to go business casual and work in IT – and he's not looking back.
"It all kind of fell through the floor," he told Fox News Digital.
"Every year, it was like, it can't get any worse than this. And then it
just did."
Former
NYPD Officer Taylor Marino retired early for a number of reasons,
including low morale and a heavy workload in his understaffed
department. Another issue, he said, was that officers he looked up to
were also leaving in droves. So, he wore one of them on his T-shirt when
he retired, too.
He voiced similar concerns about progressive oversight agencies, which he said had no understanding of how policing works.
"Their power grew over time, it was almost like they were your boss," he told Fox News Digital.
Retention
problems also took a heavy toll on officers who remained on the job
after their colleagues left for greener pastures, he said.
"The lack of manpower over the years … slowly but surely, a lot of
people were starting to leave," he said. "There were less people to work
with, and that's an increase in workload for you, an increase in
liability. That was a huge concern."
When he started in a busy Brooklyn precinct, he said, there were 12 cars on patrol. Two years later, there were just four.
The
September attack left McCarthy with a broken thumb and black eye. She
also developed post-traumatic stress disorder that eventually forced her
to retire from law enforcement.
Officers could often work 16-hour days, spend hours commuting home
and then be expected to report back after barely five hours at home with
their families, he said.
"It just wasn't worth it," he said.
It was especially rough, he said, when experienced officers he looked up to started leaving.
"I was like, ‘Oh my God, where did everybody go?’" he said. "Everybody
saw the writing on the wall, and I think it was time that I started
seeing what everybody else was seeing."
Marino, a first-generation officer, retired after just five years and
said he would discourage his own children and anyone else's children
from joining the force under the current climate.
Working in IT is much less stressful, he said.
"You
still see on a national level how police officers are dragged through
the mud for situations where people don’t agree with your actions, even
though they have no knowledge or have never experienced situations of
their own like that," he said. "I had the chance to get out of law
enforcement and I took it."
Derek
Chauvin, who in 2021 was convicted of George Floyd's killing, was later
stabbed in prison by an inmate who authorities said admitted to doing
it for clout.
Current
and former members of law enforcement from around the country have
complained of progressive policies that allow repeat offenders to get
out of custody on low or no bail and commit their next crime.
Since nationwide anti-police riots erupted across the country in 2020
after Floyd's death, morale, recruitment and retention in departments
have plummeted, experts say.
"From our boots-on-the-ground cops,
we're seeing kind of a resignation to the new normal," said Betsy
Brantner Smith, who spent almost 30 years on the job and is now a
spokesperson for the National Police Association. "I talked to some
recruiters in the Midwest recently, and they just accepted that the days
of 500 to 1,000 applications for four to five jobs, those days are
gone."
Some departments in small towns and suburbs, especially in
parts of the South and the West, are finding success in attracting good
candidates, she said, but staffing shortages are plaguing much of the
country.
"Cops are learning to do more with less, but who actually gets ripped off are the citizens." she said.
Fireworks
land on federal police facing protesters after a riot was declared near
the Justice Center on New Year's Eve in downtown Portland, Oregon, U.S.
December 31, 2020.
Pension
changes over the years have also made it easier for officers to leave
their departments without completely disrupting their retirement plans,
she said.
"My pension was very much tied to my police department," she said. "I
couldn't have left. Now they’ve changed the pension system in so many
areas that you can pick up your pension and go. It's just like your
401K."
That frees officers to pack up and move around the country
in search of a better quality of life, better school systems or better
pay, she said.
Another problem, especially for large cities like New York and
Chicago, is that families that have spent generations seeking jobs in
the same departments are no longer encouraging their children to
continue the legacy.
"My dad was NYPD. My grandpa was NYPD, and
those legacy cops are bailing out," she said. "We’re not having the
legacies themselves encourage their kids to come to those agencies. So
now what are we doing? Now we're gonna have DACA recipients."
Oregon
State Troopers and Portland police advance through tear gas while
dispersing a protest against police brutality and racial injustice on
September 5, 2020, in Portland, Oregon.
Several cities, including Seattle and Los Angeles,
have encouraged DACA recipients – whose immigration status is not clear
and who may not even legally be allowed to own firearms on U.S. soil –
to apply as they struggle to fill their depleted ranks.
"Wait until a DACA recipient uses force on an American," Brantner
Smith said. "There's a certain naïveté to this whole situation."
As a whole, the quality of applicants decreases as fewer people take an interest in joining law enforcement, she said.
"With
a recruiting crisis and a retention crisis always comes lowered
standards, and the public needs to know about that and understand it,"
he warned. "Better officers are better educated, more professional, [and
require] more training. . . . We're gonna lower our standards, so we
have warm bodies in patrol cars. That should be concerning to every
American."
Police in riot gear stand outside the Kenosha County Court House on Monday, August 24, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis.
Some changes have been minor – like more lenient rules regarding visible
tattoos or facial hair. But others are more concerning for experts,
including lowered education requirements.
Another problem in some areas is departments with deep pockets trying to
lure good officers away from their current jobs, she said.
"You go to Chicago, and you'll see billboards for Dallas PD, LAPD,"
she said. Some police departments in the San Francisco Bay Area are
offering hiring bonuses between $5,000 and $15,000, she added.
An
advertisement from Washington's Metropolitan Police Department appears
on a New York City subway car announcing a $25,000 hiring bonus plus
$6,000 in monthly rental assistance.
While
some big city departments pay high salaries, the average hourly wage
for police and sheriff's officers increased by less than $2 between 2019
and 2022, according to the most recent available data from the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic and
2020's summer of anti-police rioting, officers made an average of $33.04
an hour across the country. By 2022, that had climbed to $34.79, an
increase of 5.2% that was below inflation.
"That goes back to the morale and retention," she said.
On the upside, The Associated Press reported
earlier this year that police hiring ticked upward in 2023 for the
first time in five years, citing a survey from PERF, a nonprofit
policing think tank based in Washington, D.C.
Those gains came mainly in small- and medium-sized departments. Big
cities were still below staffing levels they maintained prior to the
2020 riots.
Early resignations also declined, although they remained above 2020 levels as well.
2 comments:
The price being paid for self inflicted wounds.
In the end, BLM bought themselves big mansions and somehow lost a lot of the donations. George Floyd was made to be Saint like and his rape and kidnapping victim in Houston watched him buried with honors on TV. Police were defunded nationwide and cops retired and quit. I would never recommend law enforcement as a vocation for anyone. I hope my son retires as soon as he is eligible. Blue cities are overrun with crime and I don't see it being fixed anytime soon. Most people don't realize that any cop ever involved in a critical incident has a chance of being indicted 20 years later by a new cop hating DA elected by the same people the cops serve.
Post a Comment