Big city police chiefs join their officers in rush to exit

Biden administration adds incentives to leave

It’s no secret that many big city police departments are severely undermanned because officers have been leaving in droves. Nor is there any doubt as to why they are leaving. It’s the left’s vilification of police officers, its calls for defunding the police, and the failure of the judicial system to keep criminals off the street that are driving officers away — “the environment for law enforcement,” as one police chief politely put it.

But it’s not just officers who are leaving. Big city police chiefs are bailing out, too.

The Washington Post reports that there are openings for the top police job in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Louisville, and Charleston, S.C. In Baltimore, the chief, who was hired in 2019, resigned earlier this month but was immediately replaced via an internal promotion.

Police chiefs are leaving for basically the same reason as their officers — frustration with the obstacles to fighting crime effectively. As I discussed here, Robert Contee, the popular D.C. police chief who resigned after less than two years, laid this out when he announced his departure. He cited the police force’s depleted ranks — it’s at a half-century low in manpower — and the city’s farcical criminal justice system — the average homicide suspect in D.C. has been arrested 11 previous times before killing someone.

Contee had also opposed so-called police accountability legislation implemented by the city council Among other things, this legislation strips police officers of their right to arbitration and gives an expanded civilian police board unfettered access to police records.

D.C.’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, also opposed this legislation. And she has echoed Contee’s broader concerns.

At a recent townhall event, she complained that there has been “a swing away from a policy environment that is focused on fighting crime” and from “making sure that people who aren’t following the rules are held accountable.”

No kidding.

The primary victims of this “swing” are the residents of D.C.’s poor neighborhoods, most of whom are black. As one of them told Bowser during the town hall:

I feel like we’re trying to appease the community, more than protect the community. For the first time in my life, I fear for my life every day.

Mayor Bowser has no answer to these problems, but at least she recognizes them and is trying not to make things worse.

The same cannot be said of the Biden administration. It’s pushing Congress to pass police reform legislation that would unreasonably restrict the police. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats reject the more reasonable reform legislation proposed by Sen. Tim Scott.

The Biden Justice Department has just released a report ripping the Minneapolis police department for alleged racism. The report lays the groundwork for a consent decree that will enable the DOJ to impose its leftist, “reimagined” version of policing on the city.

Like so many big cities, Minneapolis has seen its police force shrink and its violent crime rate increase dramatically in recent years. The restrictions the Biden DOJ will likely impose can be expected to exacerbate these alarming trends.

I have only had time to skim the DOJ’s lengthy report on the Minneapolis police department, so I won’t try to evaluate its findings and conclusions. However, I can’t say that I trust the leftist ideologues in the Biden-Garland DOJ to present a fair analysis. And on first glance, the report seems to rely heavily on specious statistical comparisons.

I also reject the notion that a consent decree would be required in the event that the Minneapolis police department is in need of reform. Neither the leftists who run the city nor the police chief who sympathizes with them needs to be coerced into reforming the department.

A better approach is the one attempted by the Trump DOJ following the killing of George Floyd. It proposed to assist the Minneapolis department in training police officers, reviewing use-of-force policies, and the like.

Minneapolis’ Police Chief Medaria Arradondo (the city’s first black chief, who has since resigned) was excited about the DOJ’s offer to assist. He made this clear during an appearance with DOJ officials, including Eric Dreiband, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil rights.

Unfortunately, the city council wanted nothing to do with this partnership. At that time, it was into defunding the police. Now, I suppose, it’s into letting left-wingers at the DOJ impose their will.

I should add that when Eric Dreiband visited Minneapolis to promote the proposed partnership with its police department, the poor black residents he spoke with didn’t complain about excessive police stops or even excessive use of force. They complained about trying to live and raise children in the midst of uncontrolled violence and gunfire.

Yesterday, Minneapolis’ police chief (hired last year) stood next to Merrick Garland and declared that his goal is to have a department that earns greater faith from local residents. It sounds like he wants, in the words of the D.C. resident who spoke at Mayor Bowser’s townhall, “to appease the community more than protect the community.”

But I suspect Minneapolis residents won’t be appeased unless the police department protects them to a much greater degree than it is able to do now. But can it protect them with a shrinking, demoralized force that’s constantly being second-guessed by the DOJ?

Running a big city police department is starting to look like mission impossible. No wonder so many police chiefs are bailing out.