The Louisville, Kentucky, police union says that the department is currently in “dire straits” in terms of employment after 200 officers quit their positions in 2020 and 2021 amid leftist calls to defund the police.
Following the officer-involved shooting that led to the death of Breonna Taylor, nearly 190 police officers quit their jobs in 2020, reported Daily Wire. The Louisville police union says that they are now in “dire straits,” failing to replace the officers amid the department’s embrace of leftist policies.
The shooting incident resulted in protests as no officers were charged for Taylor’s death. In response, the city has placed a ban on “no-knock warrants,” which prevent officers from entering a residence without announcing themselves, even if they had obtained a warrant.
The Louisville Police Department is now having trouble finding replacement officers as anti-police leftists continue their calls to “Defund the Police” according to the police union. “Nearly 190 cops left the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) in 2020 and 43 have stepped away from the Kentucky city’s agency so far in 2021, either choosing to retire or resign altogether, as law enforcement officials struggle to recruit new members to make up for a deficit in manpower,” reported Fox News. “I would say that we’re in dire straits,” said a union spokesperson.
“Statistics provided by LMPD on Tuesday show the department has hired 26 new members so far this year, while 43 have left. The 1,069-person department falls 255 people short of its ‘authorized strength’ of 1,324 — the number of personnel it is authorized to employ,” Fox News continued.
“Our manpower is critically low,” the spokesperson noted. “One thing we have to consider when we’re talking about recruiting is that in the climate that we currently find ourselves, the pool of people wanting to become officers is shrinking every day.”
The Department of Justice is now gearing up to investigate the Louisville department to determine whether officers have exhibited “a pattern of violating civil rights.”
“We’re obviously losing a lot more officers than we are gaining. And if that continues, at what point can we not operate appropriately?” said the spokesperson.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, police officers all across the nation are leaving their jobs because of “renewed public hostility” towards law enforcement.
“These aren’t isolated incidents, but part of a wave that has swept the country following nationwide anti-police protests in recent months. Renewed public hostility to cops appears to have worsened a long decline in their numbers, stretching back to the Great Recession. That’s bad news for both public safety and police-community relations: fewer cops likely means both more crime and more police misconduct.
The attrition is not limited to small towns. A survey of news stories indicates that across America’s 50 largest cities, at least 23 have seen chiefs or line officers resign, retire, or take disability this year. Nearly 3,700 beat cops have left, a large proportion from the New York Police Department (down 7% of its officers) but with big drops in Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Atlanta, and elsewhere, too. The Major Cities Chiefs Association told the Wall Street Journal that 18 of its 69 member executives had retired, resigned, or been fired over the past year.”
“There’s a lot of folks that are hesitant when they see chiefs are getting beat up and getting thrown under the bus by their bosses,” said Art Acevedo, Houston’s police chief and president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents chiefs from 69 of the largest cities in the United States.