PO Potatoes- The thoughts and musings of a crime fighting Potato

"A person who is not inwardly prepared for the use of violence against him is always weaker than the person committing the violence."  - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,  The Gulag Archipelago  chp 1, 'Arrest' If you've been paying attention to the news, the new buzz word around policing and the law enforcement profession is "police violence".  Even the United Nations is  getting in on the discussion  surrounding use of force in the US, with a heavy focus on the death of Keenan Anderson in Los Angeles, and murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Notice the terms I used. Keenan Anderson was involved in a traffic crash, fled on foot, attempted to enter another vehicle, and was initially compliant with responding officers.  After a short while he suddenly gets up and runs off, and around this same time officers made the determination that he was at fault for the accident.  I watched the BWC footage and I could easily articulate the aspects of gross intoxication (body mov

676 retirees 237 resignations 130 on leave of absences That is 1,043 officers no longer part of Chicago's police force at the end of 2021. Add another 300+ set to retire the first 2 months of 2022 and that's a 10th of the manpower IF  the department was fully staffed (at 13,100).  Which it isn't, and hasn't been for a few years now, so we are talking about an even higher percentage, I'd surmise that is more like 10%.  Even Rahm's 1000 (the 1000 new hires) didn't get us back to fully staffed.  The department has struggled to hire, and yes I know its everywhere , but when I first got on cops left other departments to come here.  I can count off the top of my head a dozen cops who have left here to go to other departments.  Some taking significant pay cuts to have a less toxic work environment, actually have their days off, and more support. Other departments are seeing big city cops leaving in droves, and they are seeing an opportunity to save on training exp