Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Are LEOs quitting near you?

How long would you stay in a job if you knew that doing it meant you would spend time in prison?

I can't imagine there won't be a sizeable number walking away from this

I said the same thing the other day...what keeps these guys coming into work?

I think a lot of them hope to tough it out 'til they get their pensions. If they quit now, what could they do? Probably start over as a cop in a less dangerous area.

The number of Minneapolis officers announcing retirement this month is on par with the norm. 7 out of 800+? Is not a large number. It also does not mean they are retiring at the end of this month as there are incentives for announcing retirement at an early date. The end of June is often the most beneficial time to retire so it sees a few more retires than the other months.

What would be more telling is the ages and years of service of those announcing. There is a 5% penalty in the pension paid out for every year less than 55 one is. So, a person retiring at 50 years of age (the youngest one could collect) would undergo a 25% penalty in their pension. That is a pretty steep reduction and one needs to be in a pretty good financial position to live off this.

The 15 officers claiming to leave for other careers or other jurisdictions is about double the norm but again, not a telling indicator on its own. This compared to officers transferring in to the department would be more meaningful as transfers into the department typically match or very slightly exceed those leaving for other places.

It would also be interesting to note how many of those leaving the department are doing so to take a higher position someplace else. It is not uncommon for lower level command staff to leave for a higher position elsewhere to advance their careers. This is often kept pretty close to the vest as it can create problems at the department.

A single month of these numbers isn't too concerning on its own. What will be telling is if this continues or increases and, more importantly, if there are enough replacements to equalize the loss. There hasn't been enough time to set even a short term trend. A couple more months and then one can start making predictions.

I said it in another place about the cops walking out in Minneapolis. I would bet my last dollar they are going to have badges in another town by the end of the month at the most. If you were young and only had a few years in why take the beating. Move on to a place your appreciated before theres a ton of competition. I'd even bet they walked out the door with letters of recommendation from their superiors.I told this story before but my neighbor growing up was the night shift Sgt for the local PD. He was a cop in KC for 15 years and said he couldn't take the constant rape,violence and murder every single night. Told me he sent resumes to like 100 small/medium sized towns all over the country (this was before the internet haha). My town offered him a Sgt. position immediately due to his experience and he had a 4 year degree. He ended up retiring as the Asst Chief and Detective for the city. They wanted him to be the Chief but he had been a cop for 35+ years at that point and was ready to retire and relax.

They should go on strike! Once the homeboys knew about it, the strike would last about 2 days!