As the country saw the highest homicide rate in decades, the public and the media's opinion of law enforcement was cratering.
Starting around the time George Floyd died last May, left-wing activists, newspaper opinion pages, city councils, and politicians in Washington, D.C., united to accuse police forces across the country of being blighted by racism and in need of widespread reforms.
MURDER RATE JUMPS BACK TO 1990S LEVELS, DATA SHOW
Governments in cities like Los Angeles, California, cut their police budget by tens of millions, even as murders dramatically increased. The city also promised to slash 200 police officer positions by the end of this year.
"It's very obvious that all the rhetoric is having an impact on our ability to recruit the best and brightest," said Fraternal Order of Police National President Patrick Yoes. "Recruitment is down. Lots of officers are choosing to take their retirement, so what we're seeing is the experience levels of departments going down. You add to that, cities downsizing their agencies, and what we're having is our job becoming less and less safe. Putting all these factors together, we're putting together a perfect storm for unsafe communities."
After the Norman, Oklahoma City Council voted to cut funding for its police department, 14 officers on staff moved to retire from the force altogether.
A survey conducted by the Manhattan Institute found that nearly half of 50 major cities saw police chiefs or other senior law enforcement officials retire, resign, or take disability in 2020.
The New York City Police Department, for example, saw a 7% decrease in officers. The Colorado Springs Police Department failed its recruitment goal by 25%.
Polling this summer indicated that influential constituencies within the Democratic Party supported "defund the police" measures. One survey showed that 25% of individuals who make over $100,000 a year backed the policies, with 27% who live in cities saying the same.
The consequences of these policies and rhetoric, some in law enforcement say, have led to record-number openings for many police departments.
"I deal with law enforcement all across the country, and I do know that a lot of the agencies are undermanned right now. I think that has to do with a lot of people retiring and getting out. When I started in 1997, there was a big push at the time, and a lot of federal money, for departments to hire," said David Hinners, the executive director of the United States Deputy Sheriff's Association. "Nowadays, I think you're seeing a lot of people get out because of the rhetoric that's getting out about law enforcement."
Experts remain split on what is driving the recruitment and retaining issues at so many different police departments. Some of the NYPD's open positions can be attributed to many officers simply retiring at a pension-eligible age, with no clear connection to rhetoric or policies from city leadership.
But in many cases, the rationale for officers resigning remains clear. In San Francisco, close to 30 officers have left the force, with several citing the city's political climate. Following the violent riots in Minneapolis, nearly 200 officers applied to leave the police force.
Data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2019 found fewer police officers per capita than in any year since 1994, when Congress passed the Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. That bill provided billions of dollars in new funding for police departments around the country.
Today, Congress appears unwilling to provide law enforcement with more resources.
In January, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a New York Democrat, introduced a bill called the Congressional Oversight of Unjust Policing Act. The law would establish a federal commission to investigate ties between right-wing extremist groups and law enforcement.
When a fuller picture of the country's homicide crisis began emerging, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped lead a hearing on the "infiltration of local police" by extremists.
"Now, far too much of the discussion around the issue of white supremacist infiltration in policing focuses on whether this problem exists at all. And we have known for generations that it is not a question about whether this problem is an issue; it is a matter of how we have allowed it to sustain for so long," she said in September.
Law enforcement groups that spoke with the Washington Examiner said they have no problem with further mandated training, and in many cases, encourage it. But more training without increased manpower, they said, does very little to help curb the country's spiking homicide rate.
Many studies show that a larger police force correlates with lower crime. A study of the Dallas Police Department found a 10% drop in law enforcement presence led to a 7% increase in crime.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"In a survey conducted in May 2010, 71 percent of city officials reported decreases in the number of police personnel in order to deal with budget cuts resulting from the economic downturn," the study reads. "With lower budgets, police departments are being forced to make tough decisions regarding police activities and deployment."
