Posted on 09/09/2023 6:17:09 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
As Goodhue Police Chief Josh Smith struggled this summer to fill vacancies in his small department, he warned the town's City Council that unless pay and benefits improved, finding new officers would never happen.
When nothing changed, Smith quit. So did his few remaining officers, leading the Minnesota town of 1,300 residents to shutter its police force in late August.
America is in the midst of a police officer shortage that many in law enforcement blame on the two-fold morale hit of 2020 — the coronavirus pandemic and criticism of police that boiled over with the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. From Minnesota to Maine, Ohio to Texas, small towns unable to fill jobs are eliminating their police departments and turning over police work to their county sheriff, a neighboring town or state police.
The trend isn't altogether new.
At least 521 U.S. towns and cities with populations of 1,000 to 200,000 disbanded policing between 1972 and 2017, according to a peer-reviewed 2022 paper by Rice University Professor of Economics Richard T. Boylan.
In the past two years, at least 12 small towns have dissolved their departments.
*SNIP*
Goodhue resident Ron Goebel, a retired accountant, said he believes the sheriff’s department will do a good job, but fears the loss of the police department is another challenge for Goodhue and towns like it across the nation.
“As you lose your schools, you lose your businesses and you lose your police force, how much longer can the town actually be viable as a town?” Goebel asked.
(Excerpt) Read more at channel3000.com ...
All by design. American Gestapo is coming.
Less speed traps?
Who in their right mind would want to be a cop in America today? It would be almost as stupid as enlisting into the US globalist foreign legion military.
You beat me to it.
Oh, yes because a National Police Force, beholden to the DNC is so much better. /s
I like your answer. Just don’t know how you came to that conclusion.
That’s right, I hate to say.
“...leading the Minnesota town of 1,300 residents”
Minnesota is a BLUE STATE - I suspect a big part of the problem is state laws and Soros Prosecutors designed to make sure that no policeman is safe, if he’s forced to open fire on person who ‘looks like America’.
Get rid of local police forces, people are going to demand something be done, and that something is a National Police Force. And who will run that Police Force?
Less government is always better. Always.
Let citizens act in the town’s best interest.
The only thing cops do is protect the criminals from us.
“ the murder of George Floyd by a police officer.”
St Floyd of fentanyl died of a drug overdose.
Back to the 1770’s when Americans figured out organized militias were needed to protect their homes and communities
We should be cheering George Floyd for four years of sobriety.
Where there is a county elected sheriff, the town police are redundant and probably superfluous.
Things go in circles. America seems to be approaching the Wild West days where people were forced to protect their families on their own. Talk about something that will end the looting and rioting. BTW, car jacking in todays world is like horse stealing in the old west.
In my town, seacoast area of NH..from 1766 till 1943 no police... 1943 till 1972 one part time, today 11 officers, 2 openings, tactical trucks, new facility’s, new cars, patrol harleys, 3100 tax payers, Zero crime on any stats to speak of.. going back to the mid 1960’s..
I’m for trying it with no or significantly reduced police for a bit..
They also arrest anyone that tries to fight back against the criminals
Dream on.
No government leads to anarchy.
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