Fox News contributor and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino warned that police officers leaving the force due to lack of support could create a “brain drain” in departments across the country.
Discussing the so-called “Ferguson effect” with a Thursday night “Hannity” panel that included International Brotherhood of Police Officers Atlanta Chapter President Jason Segura and Bongino, Fox News host Sean Hannity noted that police officers he knows are “fed up” because they “feel they are not supported.”
“They feel that these broad sweeping generalizations are false, they feel that nobody seems to care about the rocks, the bottles, the Molotov cocktails, and the bricks,” Hannity said. “They don’t seem to care over 800 injured, some dead and some paralyzed. They don’t seem to be getting any support, in other words.”
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“You know what I’m hearing from my contacts in law enforcement?” Bongino asked. “They feel like this is a one-way street. Like they are honestly trying to make an effort right now, most of the police officers I know to understand where things may have gone wrong. They get that. They understand that a bad interaction with a police officer can ruin someone’s entire day or their entire life. They get that. But they don’t feel like that empathy is being relayed back to them. This is a two-way street.”
Bongino went on to explain that most people don’t understand “what it’s like to be a cop,” having deal with people “during the worst moments of their life every single day.”
“Do you have any idea how emotionally draining it is for 40 plus hours a week to go from a missing child to an abused child to a battered wife to someone who is just robbed to someone who is just stabbed and to have to comfort and potentially save the lives of all of those people?” he asked. “Do you have any idea what that’s like? If you’ve ever heard the term 1,000-yard stare, every cop knows what that is at the end of a busy shift where you’re just looking and those eyes are empty. They are vacuums. There is nothing left. You’ve left everything in the street. I think most of the cops listening would just ask with the greatest of respect that you just understand that too.”
All the panelists agreed that a “nationwide blue flu” could be on its way.
Bongino warned that “people will die” from the “huge spike in crime” and the massive “brain drain” of seasoned, experienced officers who know how to properly solve crimes. (RELATED: Heather Mac Donald: ‘Patently False Narrative About Systemic Police Bias’ Is ‘Putting Thousands More Lives At Risk’)
“Do you have any idea the brain drain that’s about to happen because certain people in this country have leveraged the tragedy to crap all over our cops?” he asked. “It’s a damn shame. I’m telling you, they are the finest men and women I’ve ever worked with and you’re about to see the Ferguson effect times 1,000 and it’s a damn shame and I pray it doesn’t happen.”