LEO Exodus
Police Officers are leaving the force in record numbers, and who can blame them? 5th/77th FA sends us a pair of articles on the subject, one from an Atlanta-centric viewpoint. Atlanta is hardly alone, with other major, Democrat cities reporting the same. Unsurprisingly, crime is on the increase with the corresponding low police presence. The cause of this is pretty obvious. In the second article a senior LEO from Louisville will retire after being relieved of her duties. Her sin? Speaking her mind.
Gun Bunny sends.
IN-DEPTH: Atlanta’s violent summer coincides with officer exodus
City sees about as many murders in 9 months this year as in all of last year
By Christian Boone and Shaddi Abusaid
Lakea Gaither had known only one job in her adult life. She joined the Atlanta Police Department as a 22-year-old recruit, and in the 18 years since, she was repeatedly recognized for her standout work as part of the gangs unit. Officer of the Year in 2013. Investigator of the Year in 2015.
Back in May, just before Atlanta’s summer of unrest began, Gaither took a break that lasted through much of the summer, a time when violent crime in Atlanta skyrocketed.
Yet during her absence, “not one white shirt called,” said Gaither, using the nickname reserved for police higher-ups. “It was very disheartening. That’s when I decided it was time to leave.”
Gaither was one of 37 APD officers who either retired or resigned in August. Twenty-six departed in July.
Nearly twice as many officers have left the city of Atlanta force this year compared to 2019, internal documents reveal. Many, like Gaither, said they felt underappreciated both by their bosses and city leadership.
At the same time, the number of murders in the city is up 40% this year from the same point in 2019. Shootings have risen 29%; aggravated assaults, 8%, APD records show.
Read the rest here: AJC.com
Louisville officer who criticized Black Lives Matter and Antifa in email relieved of command, to retire
‘They were her personal opinions and do not represent the views of this department’
By Louis Casiano
A Louisville police officer who criticized Black Lives Matter activists and Antifa supporters in an email last month was relieved of her command and will retire, officials said Friday.
Maj. Bridget Hallahan, 47, sent an email in August saying members of both groups will be “the ones washing our cars” and “cashing us out at the Walmart.” In response, she was relieved of her duties leading the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Fifth Division and will retire Oct. 1, interim Chief Robert Schroeder said during a news briefing.
“We are aware of these emails and we have been looking into them,” Schroeder said. “They were her personal opinions and do not represent the views of this department.”
The email starts off by saying: “I know it is hard to keep our thoughts and opinions to ourselves sometimes” amid protests over the death of Breonna Taylor and others killed by police. She said the public sometimes criticizes “what we do without even knowing the facts.”
“These ANTIFA and BLM people, especially the ones who just jumped on the bandwagon ‘yesterday’ because they became ‘woke’ (insert eye roll here), do not deserve a second glance or thought from us. Our little pinky toenails have more character, morals, and ethics, than these punks have in their entire body.
“Do not stoop to their level. Do not respond to them. If we do, we only validate what they did. Don’t make them important, because they are not. They will be the ones washing our cars, cashing us out at the Walmart, or living in their parents’ basement playing COD [Call of Duty] for their entire life.”
She also claimed that officers and their families have been victims of doxing, the publishing of someone’s private information, “merely because people just don’t like being told what to do or what not to do by police.”
Read the article here: Fox News
I can think of only a couple remedies for this situation; find and prosecute those funding the riots, and vote the Dems currently in power, out. Anyone think either of these will occur during a Biden administration?
Thanks, Gun Bunny.
Category: ANTIFA, BLM, Guest Link
I hope for all of our sakes, this bs stops soon.
Prepare as if it won’t.
Thanks for the informative articles!
A cousin in the NYPD says there have been mass retirements recently, though that is no surprise. They’re expected to do their jobs at the penalty of being criticized and attacked whether they do it or not. He also said that at one event where DeBlasio was personally present, he referred to the police present as “stupid cocksuckers” to a nearby aide, and many of the officers present heard it.
So we know what he thinks of his law enforcement officers… though that is no surprise to anyone.
Well, I did wonder how long it would take.
My understanding is that a lot of larger departments are limiting the number of retirements, with predictable results.
Admins in PDs never learned that one can retire without filing any papers, until such time as they can actually retire.
Communities get the kinds of law enforcement they ask for. Atlanta, Minneapolis, San Francisco, NYC, etc… are getting EXACTLY what they have asked for.
For the rest of the citizenry in areas of the country not being run by dim witted politicians; elected by a citizenry consisting of voters with the intellectual depth and moral compass of a child; vote. Support politicians who back sane policies with your vote and $$ if you can spare it. Show up for jury duty. Speak up.
Insane public union police pensions after as little as 20 years of work allows them to.
I think I missed something brother. Our military allows retirement after 20 years. I think union or not, a 20-year retirement in the line of duty as a LEO is just as fair.
Help me understand 2banana if I missed something.
Historically, some localities had VERY generous retirement packages. Think of pay/benefits along the lines of a 30 year commissioned officer but being able to take it at 20.
Those days are largely in the past. Pensions most places now days are typically what the state offers any other employee.
The larger localities where officers are retiring in droves are probably grandfathered under older pension programs. I’m sure the next target is going to be pensions for retired LEOs in those localities once they see how much of the city budget is paying retirees (once they see their tax base has fled). Drive the experienced folks out of the profession and then make them paupers in retirement so no one makes the mistake of seeing it as a profession.
Thank you penguinman000. I guess I missed this. I did not know their pensions could be so generous and in that case, inappropriate to the service.
My recently deceased brother frequently complained that by clever (and totally legal) manipulation of their final years of employment, senior police and fire officials in California could retire at 80% or more of their highest pay, even 100% in some cases.
Perhaps Whitey could offer some input on that…
I believe the older rules were retiring at a set percentage of final pay, so effort was put forward to maximize overtime in the final year. Even at a modest 60% of final pay, people in the 80s were getting a hefty pension.
Source – Mom worked for CalTrans in the 80s and 90s.
Some do. Many of the police pensions are calculated on a highest three or five years of pay. So what guys looking to retire start to do is work all the OT they can get their hands on. Some even take second, part time jobs. They’ll work 80-100 hours a week.
Yes, they boost the hell out of their retirement, but they alienate their family, friends, and have so much personal self-worth tied to the job that they die within a couple years of retiring.
Our regular shift is 72 hours/week for most personnel. 80-100 hours/week is pretty standard for us anyway, since the state refuses to hire enough people and we have to cover the gaps in regular operational staffing with overtime. Then you get into times like this, where they pull the “days off cancelled” trigger and leave it that way.
Cost of living in California doesn’t help, either. My Dad just retired in January at the age of 59 and rank of Battalion Chief. He was eligible at 50, but couldn’t afford it. He has ate, slept, and breathed being a firefighter-paramedic since 1979. He just started a new job last week. And he’s beating the odds being in good health at his age, as many of us don’t live to see 60, and few reach 70.
I’m one of the youngest guys grandfathered onto the old contract, where I’ll be eligible at 50. Guys hired after 2005 have to go to 55. The recent crop of new-hires have to hold out until 58. This job is physically, emotionally, and psychologically demanding, so that kinda sucks.
Lots of folks earn a pension on CA on NY salary, then retire to Florida. No income tax, cheaper houses, and much lower cost of living.
I met a retired NYC fireman who said he lived as a pauper on full pay in NYC, and like a king on half pay in Florida.
There are other such destinations.
Something to consider.
In Colorado, ours are not near as generous. I’m on the state plan that has existed for over 20 years, so almost everyone still on the job falls under this one. It’s a little complicated, but you get 2% of your pay for the first 10 years of service, for every year after that, you get 2.5%. The earliest age for full retirement is 55, and we have a “rule of 80” which means your years of service and age combined need to equal 80. so to go at the minimum age of 55, you’d need 25 years of service. Per the above percentages, you’d only get 57.5% of your three highest pay years, and unlike some of the examples above, our pension only counts base salary, NOT overtime (this was a change from the old plan, but was changed over 20 years ago). While this means our pension means that a person can retire at 55, we have no retirement healthcare, so it is unlikely that anyone can actually do so, and it would definitely not be considered a “lavish” pension… (for those counting, you’d need 34 years of service to retire at 80% of your base salary)
There seem to be many cities losing LEOs to retirement and exiting those states. I wonder why that’s happening.
Don’t you watch the news? The peaceful protesters are chasing off all the racists.
Penguin, it seems that in many major metro areas, including the northeastern counties of Illinois, the urge to retire now, before it’s too late, is growing like Topsy.
If 10% of your senior LEOs suddenly decide to book on out the door and are not replaced quickly, and the crime rate goes up at the same time, is it possible there is a link between those events?
I do wonder about that myself. 😉
Clearly there is no link. If there were the ethically clear and morally straight news agencies would be reporting on it.
Pay and retirement packages vary widely from agency to agency. Some places pay patrol officers $12 an hour with no benefits up to over $100k a year with everything. Pay is normally just bad though. At my agency my military retirement check is a bit higher than my salary. I’m not bitching, I knew that was the deal when I signed up and made a choice to serve. Like most cities the local government for the most part doesn’t really give a crap about us and tells us that in all the little and big ways every day. So we never really see a pay raise to keep up with 2020. Last year they tried to kick families off the medical plan. It is good to know that when you start your day that way you aren’t disappointed. It is not just officers quitting. Five years ago typically an agency would get 20 applicants for every open position. Of those about 33% would be qualified. These days it is more like 3 applicants with only 1 being qualified. They literally have to take whoever they get. Low pay, terrible hours, dealing with drug addicts, wife beaters, Karens, race baiters, protestors, crazies and generally people that most everyone else passes on the street with a fearful glance; yeah you kind of have to be either a real optimist or a masochist to do this job. So far as mental health calls go there isn’t an officer out there who will shed a tear about never dealing with a nutter ever again. What most people don’t realize is that practically all those who are “mental” and requiring police attention are drug induced mental. Go ahead and send a social worker to deal with some hopped up meth head who is fighting off space aliens who are coming to steal his stuff. I’ll stand way back, body camera rolling. That guy in the Walmart parking lot that is mumbling incoherently about seeing dead people? Yeah he is high as a kite. Most people with real mental problems who do not have a substance… Read more »
100% in agreement.
Naw, it’s just the cops’ fault. The hood culture has nothing to do with the problems in the inner city.
Ferguson was where the war on cops started and where the applicants dropped way off. It’s only gotten worse since then.
Not to mention all the LEOs in Minneapolis/Louisville/Seattle/Portland filing for disability due to protests and riots. I don’t blame them one bit. No one signed up for this shit. Either take off the leashes and let them crack some heads or disband and turn the damn cities into “Lord of the Flies”.
At the same time, the governor is going to complain about not having enough tax revenues.
I wonder why that’s happening. Could it be due to businesses being shuttered for various reasons?
“Businesses shuttered”…
And moving to Texas, bringing the same morons that screwed up those cities right along with them.
I hauled an ROTC UT San Antonio from the Austin Airport who moved here a few months ago from California.
She said that people actually try to run her off the road, flip her off, scream at her, throw stuff at her when they pass all for having commiefornia plates….
She now has her Texas plates and bought one of my “Don’t California my Texas bumper stickers and put it on her truck !!!
I schooled her on the norms of real Texas society and the people of Texas.
“Don’t California my Texas bumper stickers and put it on her truck !!!…”
Just like the stickers and t shirts that say “DON’T NEW YORK MY FLORIDA”!
Businesses being shuttered long term due to rioting, COVID, and then flat out saying FUCK IT, packing up and leaving due to being destroyed because of “SYSTEMATIC RACISM”….nevermind they were Black and/or minority owned to begin with. Someone said it pretty well when all this crap first kicked off: this right ‘chere is the participation trophy and ‘everyone is a winner!’ generation reaching adulthood and never being told NO. The bill is due, and no one is going to pay it, except the taxpayer.
If Maj. Bridget Hallahan, of Louisville, had been black, no action would have been taken.
And all these ass wipes who claimed “we can police ourselves” are realizing that just does not work. It is anarchy because the strong and evil will always tread on the weak. Funny though how councilpersons and mayors still have police protection and call on them to guard their homes. All the while spewing the fascist foolishness of BLM and Antifa.
saw an article over the weekend in which the Minneapolis “defund the police” council is backstepping faster’n Michael J. Fox doing his Michael Jackson imitation… “wait, we meant the SPIRIT of defunding” “this isn’t how we meant it” etc…. they dropped their drawers and are not trying to cover their wide-gaped political hindsides.
now trying
Kinda makes you want to laugh at them, doesn’t it?
Sadly Sparks, I feel you are absolutely correct…on both paragraphs. And there are some very good, Spot On, points made above. Plus as Mason has pointed out, there is only about 2 ways to fix these problems. I honestly never thought I would never live long enough to see these kinds of problems in our country…or people deeply imbedded in our government doing their very best to destroy our way of life.
I’ve been tracking these types of stories all summer. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t just sit at this lap top pounding away on an F5 key waiting on the TAH Friday Weekend Open Thread to drop. Or looking at gun pr0n or Ms Thangs. I monitor 5 or more news feeds and have bookmarked a number of other publications that my Brothers and Sisters here have posted about. Mason, ‘Ed, and I have kicked this subject around briefly, knowing how close to home it was to many here. I keyed in on these 2 because it gave a perspective from 2 women, long serving officers, one left because of her frustration with “higher”, the other FIRED for speaking her truthful personal opinion. This kinda sh^t needs to end…NOW!!!
I have a number of past and present family members and best of friends that serve/served in LE. The sleeze media is fanning the flames with the disinformation on ALL of these cases, even when they are given factual, ironclad proof of the truth of the situation. The Louisville Case is most blatant. A tragedy that Miss Taylor got HERSELF killed…by HER OWN actions. They are showing as I type a news cast…”killed in bed…” “…EMT…” “…unannounced…”, all things that have been disproved.
“Get ready Little Lady, Hell is coming to breakfast!”
And while they may not be fully showing it yet, when that breakfast bell clangs, I’d be willing to wager my backup case of Yuenglings that LE is going to sitting on our side of the table…
“be” sitting…sheez!
I’m telling Mrs Lawrence, she’ll make you write that sentence out ten times, like she did to me for making a boo boo !!!
Headline:
Politicians and journalists confounded in their attempt to find a cause for the uptick in violence; conclude Trumps racism is clearly to blame
I support our police
I cannot stand Antifa and blm.
I would like to see some functions removed from the police.
Like mental health calls.
There should be some kind of armed response team that has more options than typical patrol officers when parents call for kids off their meds, acting irrationally.
Maybe they could even have a net. Like you see in cartoons.
They would use a gun only in self defense when attacked.
Not to back up “lawful orders”.
I cannot find the video anymore, but a while back a mentally unhinged man on a domestic disturbance call answered the door with a shotgun pointed at the officer. Luckily it had been disabled. Cops didn’t know that. The cop that had been at the door after the fact was clearly, and understandably upset and admitted on the spot he was sure he should be dead.
They knocked on the door. That’s it. The police are probably going on those calls even if it’s some social worker.
You know on re-reading, I want to address the other part too. People are a lot harder to SAFELY detain than you realize. Tazers aren’t that effective. Bolos can lead to severe injury. Nets can lead to injury and have strong odds of being useless. Pepper balls, pepper spray and tear gas don’t effect everyone the same. Beanbag rounds can cause serious injury and aren’t always going to work on someone hopped up on anything really.
Something tells me you’ve rarely, if ever had to be in a fight against someone and I get the same whiff that I get around people just before they try shoot/no-shoot situations.
Back on the late 60’s when I was an MP, there was an effective, highly technical device that could be employed to encourage those physically resisting to be more cooperative.
It was called a nightstick…
I still remember stories of Bobbies beating the blue hell out of people back in England when we lived there to be fair.
However, the optics on even minimal pain compliance today are awful due to the media ‘excitement’ and that wouldn’t fly too well these days. Never mind the nightmare that would be the cavalcade of lawsuits over the first broken arm, even if the guy deserved it.
All that said, the nightstick probably should come back, just because it does give innate leverage when they’re used properly. And you know, people play stupid games either way.
Pain compliance and nightsticks would be fine to use against Tea Party people, those protesting government over reach, Trump supporters – you get the idea. And that’s regardless of color.
I wish libs would just be honest and say “Color really doesn’t matter, ideology does”. That would make everything less hypocritical.
I only actually employed a nightstick a couple of times as 101st MP’s weren’t authorized to carry them–the rationale being that since we were “Airborne MP’s” we shouldn’t “need” them. Never mind that the population we were policing was also 90% Airborne.
Fortunately, we patrolled with partners, “straight-leg” MP’s from the 553rd MP Company who were authorized to carry nightsticks and were generally quite willing to hand them to us when it came time to put them into action.
And in case any of you think they weren’t occasionally needed, my very first patrol lasted about an hour. It was on payday and my leg partner, a sergeant (since I was a rookie PFC) and I encountered a group of drunk paratroopers from the 501st marching down the middle of the street singing Jodie cadence who refused to let us pass when we honked at them.
So we got out and cleared the road–the leg sergeant with his nightstick and me with my hands because Airborne MP’s didn’t need anything else. By the time we’d apprehended the ones who refused to quit fighting, my uniform was ripped and bloodied, the spit-shine on my jump boots was crushed into ruin and I was bleeding from multiple wounds.
The desk sergeant at the provost marshal’s office took one long appraising look at young PFC Poe and sent him back to his barracks for the remainder of his initial tour for some badly needed combat maintenance.
But I was Airborne–I didn’t need a nightstick…😝
Poe:
Why do I get the mental image of you being like the Captain from Cool Hand Luke?
“What we got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what you had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well…he gets it. And I don’t like it any more than you men.”
Nope, boss, when I was that age I was a lot more like Luke…
So they would send a Retiarius out to subdue the folks who are mentally unstable?
All obscure joking aside, the reason cops are sent out on those jobs are because they potentially become dangerous – and quickly. Cops are trained for dangerous situations. Social workers are not so trained. Think of a domestic dispute. Sounds like it might just need a social worker. Maybe in the majority of cases the situation would be fine with that. There are enough of those that turn violent, however, and that makes sending a social worker very dangerous to those people (all involved, actually).
One last thing. You write, “They would use a gun only in self defense when attacked”. I believe that is the case in the VAST MAJORITY of police shootings. Some aren’t – everyone knows and acknowledges this. The ones that aren’t, however, are in a minuscule minority. Those that do are almost always prosecuted. Point being, you don’t have to wish for this – it’s already happening.
No surprise here to me.
Actually, I’m wondering why the LEO’s haven’t been running for the doors for the past fifteen years.
The fact of oblowme calling the cops stupid was a true harbinger of the attitudes that are being shown toward them today.
I sat next to a Deputy Sheriff waiting for tires to be put on my car a couple weeks ago and asked him how the Austin shooting by Sgt Preston of the First Cavalry was being handled.
He simply smiled and said, “It was a good shoot”…
I have just been ignoring the news lately, I didn’t hook cable up in my house except the interwebz.
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t miss it in the least…
Any LEO’s reading this, please, from the bottom of my heart, I wish all of you the absolute best of everything in all cases and the same for your families !!!
Be safe and know that more Americans than you could possibly imagine are praying for you, every day…..
I remember when Barney Fife quit because he thought Andy hired
a guy to replace him. A town needs good cops.
Maj. Hallihan got one factoid in her “offensive” email wrong. Hardcore BLMers and Antifastanis won’t be working at Walmart or washing cars because they don’t have JOBs.