'They feel vilified': Law enforcement frustrated by lack of support, former officer says

WASHINGTON (TND) — The uptick in violence against men and women in blue has many in the law enforcement industry trying to combat crime while protecting officers on the job.

The National Police Association's Sgt. Betsy Smith, a 29-year veteran of the force, broke down why community support for law enforcement or the lack thereof varies so much between cities across America.

“We spoke to law enforcement officers today and in Texas, they feel very supported but then you go to, you know, Chicago, New York, L.A., Portland, Seattle, any of the larger urban areas they don't feel so supported and in fact, they feel vilified,” Smith said.

The National Fraternal Order of Police reports that more than 100 officers have been shot so far in 2022 and ambush-style attacks on police officers is up 36% from this time last year. Smith says she feels mainstream media is contributing to the problem by pushing the idea that police are dangerous.

“We have contact with 50 to 80 million people each year,” Smith said. “We only use force against about 1.1% of those people that we end up arresting. So most law enforcement-citizen contact does not involve any sort of violence and of those 10 million people we arrest, we rarely use force against them. But we have media and politicians saying that we are the problem and we are the danger. That has to stop.”

Last week, President Joe Biden outlined the administration's proposed budget that included $20.6 billion to the Department of Justice's spending on federal law enforcement, a $2 billion increase from the current fiscal year.

“I would like to see that money go to equipment and gear including communication systems for a lot of agencies who need that. We were being outgunned. We need additional firearms and with that goes firearms training and we need officer survival training. We can't put all this money behind teaching officers preferred pronouns and things like that. We've got to have officer safety training that helps keep those cops alive to continue to serve and protect and go home to their families,” she said.

Many cities are also facing staffing shortages due to officers leaving the force.

“We are having difficulty recruiting new people to the profession and a lot of officers who leave they go to another more law enforcement-friendly area,” Smith said. “New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, L.A. — those officers do not feel supported and so of course, they're not going to stay on the job or be attracted to it. If you have to worry about getting indicted and all those arrests you make are never prosecuted, why would anyone want to stay on this job?”