by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream:

Even during the best of times, being a police officer in one of America’s major cities is extremely stressful, and these are definitely not the best of times.  In 2020, the entire profession has become the target for a vast nationwide outpouring of anger and hatred.  It doesn’t matter if you are a good officer or a bad officer, because everyone is being lumped together.  Every single person that puts on a police uniform understands that they are putting their lives on the line every single day, but now that is even more true than ever.  All over the U.S., police officers are being attacked, abused and targeted for violence, and I can’t even imagine what it is like to never be able to let your guard down because someone could assault you at any moment.  And even if you never get physically attacked, most officers must still endure the mental torment of knowing that vast numbers of people want them dead simply because they have chosen to serve in the police.  For Winchester, Tennessee police officer Dustin Elliott, that was one of the main factors that caused him to quit his job…

“I thought long and hard about whether or not I should even make a video, but I feel like that today we all kinda need to understand where law enforcement is and the crusade against us that is weighing on every officer’s heart in America right now,” he said.

“It’s devastating to be a police officer right now, and to know what’s going on and how people feel about you and the things that you do in this job, the sacrifices that you make,” Elliott added. “There’s a lot that would rather see you dead just because of the uniform that you wear.”

I have never seen as much hatred for the police as we are seeing right now, and that is incredibly sad.

Yes, there have been abuses, but most police officers have never had any problems and serve their communities with distinction.

Unfortunately, we are seeing many fine officers leave their careers behind because of how radically the environment has changed.  For example, “at least seven Minneapolis police officers” have already quit since George’s Floyd’s death, and “more than half a dozen are in the process of leaving”…

At least seven Minneapolis police officers have resigned from the department since widespread unrest began over the death of George Floyd last month, and more than half a dozen are in the process of leaving, according to department officials.

The departures, an unusually large exodus, come amid a growing crisis for the state’s largest police force, with a state human rights investigation underway, calls for defunding, and even disbandment.

Of course the entire Minneapolis police force is about to be completely disbanded, and so nobody can blame those officers for exiting while they can still do so on their own terms.

Needless to say, we are seeing lots of resignations around the rest of the country as well.  For example, down in Florida we just witnessed an entire 10 person SWAT team resign after the police chief “knelt with racial justice protesters”…

A 10-member SWAT team for a Florida police department has resigned en masse after their chief knelt with racial justice protesters, saying they felt “restrained by the politicization of our tactics.”

The letter of resignation from the SWAT team in Hallandale Beach, Fla., was delivered to city officials on Friday, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Unfortunately, we are in an economic environment where more than 44 million Americans have already lost a job this year, and so a lot of officers will feel like they have no choice but to stay in their current jobs so that they can provide for their families.

And for those that stay, these protests will likely have an extreme chilling effect on the use of force.  Nobody wants to become “the next Derek Chauvin”, and so a lot of officers may choose to start letting uncooperative criminals get away rather than use force, because a single incident that goes wrong can literally destroy your life.

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