Long before the “defund, harass and prosecute the police” madness, there was trouble aplenty in law enforcement at every level. Police administrators across the country were purposely hiring only people below average in intelligence.  

What the…?!

There is method to their madness, as Shakespeare said. They figured smart people would quickly get bored, and after spending around a year, and lots of money, training them, would quit. Because they tend not to be themselves smart people, they didn’t think about arranging officer’s assignments to best use that kind of brain power, so anyone calling 911 and needing the police right now were not likely to get the sharpest knife in the drawer. Courts ruled that was just fine, and that problem has not changed.

That was then. This is now. Now is worse.

Graphic: X screenshot.

No police agency is overstaffed. When officers are sick, on vacation, or otherwise absent, shifts run short of personnel or others have to take overtime shifts. This increases stress on overworked officers and lengthens call response times. Defund the police lunacy, even in places it never took hold, has made the profession less enticing.  

For example, the Seattle Police Department has lost more than 700 officers in the last five years. They’re so desperate, they’re recruiting illegal immigrants who can’t legally carry guns. Officers remaining on badly understaffed agencies in cities that harass and prosecute them for doing their jobs quickly learn to do as little as possible. They particularly avoid arresting the criminals of favored minority groups who ironically commit most crimes. It’s just not worth it to lose their careers or liberty. If they can’t get the benefit of the doubt, and if the criminal justice system won’t protect them, what’s the point?

The case of Meagan McCarthy, a former San Bernardino Sheriff’s Deputy is illustrative. 

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. 

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.’

That video at the link shows McCarthy’s attacker firing multiple rounds at close range at her. We don’t know why the jury didn’t convict, but it would be hard to imagine a stronger case for attempted murder.

Former NYC Officer Taylor Marino also abandoned police work:

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.

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.

Any agency that loses 2/3 of its manpower can no longer serve the public. That kind of staffing problem puts officers and the public in imminent danger.

As one might expect, DEI is also involved in damaging public safety. The FBI is caught up in woke hiring. As long as an applicant checks the right DEI boxes, it doesn’t matter if they’re lazy, unqualified, functionally illiterate or actually dangerous, they’ve got a career.

Many agencies, particularly cities in blue states, are so desperate they’re reducing qualifications to desperate levels. They’re accepting people who can’t pass a rudimentary physical fitness test, have prior DWIs, histories of drug and alcohol abuse, even misdemeanor and felony convictions that in the near past would have been instant disqualifiers. Some recruits have so many piercings they set off airport metal detectors from the parking lot.

Americans get the politicians, and the police, they deserve. If they’re willing to live with rampant crime, defund the police, harass them, prevent them from doing their jobs, convince the police they’re more likely to be prosecuted than the felons they arrest, they’re not going to have professional police forces. To get the worst, discipline and prosecute the police for lawfully doing their jobs. That’s how cities lose dedicated, smart people like Meagan McCarthy and Taylor Marino.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.