Morale among Los Angeles Police Department officers is crumbling as the city, like the rest of the country, grapples with “constant verbal beatings” and the looming threat of contracting the coronavirus, according to the chief of the police union. .
“An agent told me that he feels like a Vietnam soldier returning to his country in a country that hates him, and that it is not a good place to be,” said Robert Harris, director of the Police Protection League of Los Angeles, the local police union. , he told CBS Los Angeles on Monday.
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Police in Los Angeles and other parts of the country have faced harsh criticism since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody on May 25. Four police officers have been charged and protests have erupted across the country, some of them over violent clashes with the police. . As a result, left-wing activists and legislators proposed the removal of the police departments.
And all this in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Those factors have “beaten” and “bruised” Los Angeles police officers, Harris told the outlet.
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“The vilification and constant verbal beating of our profession have charged a high price in addition to what they were expected to do with the protests and COVID, so morale is low at the moment,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council approved the first part of a plan to replace police officers with unarmed response personnel when it comes to non-violent service calls. It is one of several proposals for police reform in the city, and Harris recognized that the reforms are truly appropriate, as long as they involve police unions.
In a series of tweets, Councilman Herb Wesson Jr. argued that the current state of the Los Angeles police “is not working” and that a month of protests against police violence “made that clear.”
“We have a responsibility to listen to our people, and our people have spoken,” he wrote.
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On top of that, lawmakers earlier this month voted to cut police funding by $ 150 million. Separately, Los Angeles County CEO Sachi Hamai has proposed slashing tens of millions of dollars from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.
Harris said the police budget cut would have “serious impacts” and cost about 800 officers in the next two years.
“With the arrival of the World Cup and the Olympics, I don’t think we can afford to do that,” he said.
