The president of the Washington, D.C., police union says a study of the members in his union indicates 70% of them are contemplating leaving their profession as protests, riots and calls to defund the police continue.
“We recently did a study of our own members and we found that over 70% of them were considering leaving the police department, and the vast majority were considering leaving law enforcement altogether,” Greggory Pemberton told “Fox & Friends First.”
”Yeah, they’re pretty alarming,” he said of the results, noting that “those are the same numbers that we are seeing in a lot of other cities.” Pemberton said the homicide rate in the capitol is 10% higher than the year before. (RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Did Not ‘Directly’ Say If She Supports ‘Defund Police’ Movement)
Violent crime is on the rise in other major urban centers. In Chicago, shootings claimed the lives of 14 people over the Father’s Day weekend.
The union president said he hasn’t seen such low morale since 2015 when the nation became fixated on the alleged aggression of police in Ferguson, Missouri, creating the “Ferguson Effect,” where officers across the country felt like they were under suspicion for improper conduct.
“My concerns are that what’s going on right now makes what happened in 2015 look like child’s play. And I think rather than seeing police officers sit on their hands or fail to be more apprehensive about doing police work, I think you’re actually see people leaving law enforcement.”
Pemberton said it’s not just a sense of frustration that’s bothering police officers in 2020 but that many are reflecting upon the chronic danger that the job imposes on their lives.
“When people realize that they put their lives and their freedom, and their families in jeopardy they’re going to start looking at other careers … I think you’re going to see a lot of police officers leave law enforcement and that’s going to leave us in a really bad place.”
Black Lives Matter and other protesters are demanding that police forces across America be defunded. Hollywood and other celebrities are lining up to scorn the police, and a former press secretary to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has advocated that cities across America reduce funding for their police forces. Proponents of defunding or abolishing the police argue that the forces are systematically racist. (RELATED: Atlanta Mayor Says Police Morale Is ‘Down Ten-Fold’: Police Department Denies Rumours Of Officers Calling Sick)
A girl sits outside a burned Wendy’s restaurant on the third day following Rayshard Brooks shooting death by police in the restaurant parking lot in Atlanta, Georgia, June 15, 2020. (Photo: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
The Atlanta Police Department says that eight police officers have left the service since the beginning of the month and after one of its members was charged with murder for allegedly shooting a black man who had taken the officer’s taser.
The Southeast regional director of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers recently told Fox News that many officers in the city are afraid of getting fired for doing their jobs.