depends a lot on where you are and who you are, which says a lot.
It used to be, even if you scored one hundred percent on a Civil Service test you might be waiting years to get called to the Academy. If you scored ninety eight percent you had no chance. Thatās how many people wanted that job back in the day.
Very few want that job now. But we still need cops, so, unfortunately, the pool to draw from has shrunken considerably. What the public gets is not the same.
Where I currently live is sparsely populated. Officers who grow up here are hesitant to properly do their job because Kimo was baby sat by auntie. It happens all the time.
Being on one of the most isolated land masses on earth, there is no oversight by higher law enforcement entities here. This causes different police behavior than you would have in other parts of our country.
So thatās here.
The other place Iām most familiar with is Massachusetts. The Massachusetts State Police were the most respected police by all of us. For the last ten years itās become a corrupt clowncar show that canāt keep itself out of the headlines, or out of jail.
I donāt know if youāre familiar with the recent murder trial of Karen Read in MA. It was as if Hollywood was making a trilogy about crooked and murderous police officers. It was declared a mistrial, so weāll get to watch it again. Unless the Feds step in, which I think they might.
Unrelated to above, I had lunch with two FBI agents last weekend. Two lovely kids who just got engaged, one of whom I trained to pass his physical requirements a couple of years ago. We had a nice lunch and talked about law enforcement in my time compared to their time.
They were dumbfounded hearing how honorable the majority of city, county and town law enforcement officers used to be.
I trust very few of them anymore.