Is Your Local Police Force Angry They Don't Get Paid as Much as ICE?

Imagine spending a long, honorable career working through the ranks of the military or local law enforcement. Imagine having to maintain a certain ethical standard and survive on insufficient pay while you pay your dues.How would you feel about a presidential regime that starts handing out huge bonuses to unvetted white supremacists? How would you feel about potentially having to confront violent men with criminal records going door to door to harass the citizens of your town?It is your town isn’t it?I don’t understand why local law enforcement doesn’t have more to say about what’s going on today. They’re the ones who live locally. They have children in the community. They’re already engaged in protecting the public.If there’s some sort of issue, wouldn’t it make more sense for the Federal government to offer resources to local agents? Local law enforcement knows the terrain. They know the people.Why is it the solution of this government to ship in potentially violent men who know nothing about the community where they’ve just been deployed? When those ICE agents get there, they don’t know which children are the kids of law enforcement officers. They don’t know anybody. They can just come out shooting. It’s all a big video game to them.They don’t have to live in that town, but local law enforcement does. Local law enforcement will remember the faces of the kids that were taken. They’ll remember them until their last day.I’m curious to hear what local law enforcement thinks about the actions of a government that are putting all children at risk. All our kids go to the same schools. All our kids play on the same teams. The children of local law enforcement are as likely to be knocked aside by out-of-control ICE agents as any other kids.Everybody’s had the experience of being passed over for a promotion. There’s nothing more frustrating than to work hard, play by the rules, and have some entitled jerk who never put in the time somehow swoop in to harvest all the rewards.Perhaps it’s time to stop calling up your local representative and start calling your police department instead."Yeah, I just wanted to know how you feel about how the government abandoned you. I mean, all that money they’re paying to ICE, don’t you think it should have gone to you?”Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m best friends with the local police. Apart from a couple minor traffic violations, I’ve never been in any kind of legal trouble. Even so, I don’t have a particularly fond feeling about the police. I don’t have fond feelings about any authority figure to be honest.Lately I’ve appreciated that the police have a presence at our school. There’s always a car out front. I’ve talked to the principal and he said the district policy is to not allow ICE to come in. Some people are saying the right thing, but it remains to be seen what will happen when the crisis comes.In the meantime, perhaps it’s time that we made some calls. Maybe we could stop some police officers, thank them for the job their doing, and ask them if they are willing to stand between the kids in this community and the reckless bullets of ICE agents.I’m not naive enough to sit here and think appeals to human life will make much of a difference, so that’s why I turned to money. The US government has just demonstrated that it’s always had the capacity to give local law enforcement a massive raise.But instead of doing that, they bypassed the establishment entirely. The first year salary of a soldier is $28,356. ICE gets a whole lot more.How is that fair?Also, I want everyone to remember that there’s a major difference between what’s going on in Minneapolis and what’s going on in Portland. In Portland they sent the National Guard. Yes, there was tension, but no innocent young mothers got shot in the face.This is because the military represents a certain legal standard. So do the police. Sometimes that standard is not met, but it sure beats not having any standard at all.ICE has no standard at all. They’re nothing more than a bunch of poorly trained yokels with guns. They’re so reckless that they slip in the snow and end up shooting their automatic weapons into the air.Oh, and they get paid more than the police and the military.The unrest in Minneapolis is because thousands of poorly trained, incompetent, and hostile ICE agents have been sent to the city. They’re tormenting everyone. Kids are being kept home from school.How is this not breaking the heart of anyone who signed up “to protect and serve?”Again, they’re also getting paid more than local law enforcement.We’ve put our public servants in a terrible bind. They’ve been told it’s their job to keep the peace. Now they’re finding themselves staring down the barrel of a gun held by a federal agent.At least they think he’s a federal agent. He’s wearing a mask. He got out of an unmarked car. He refuses to show any identification. He’s also getting paid a lot more than our local police officers and our proud military forces.I’m curious, how does your local police force feel about that? Are they really so inept that they need a bunch of untrained hooligans to come in and clean up their mess? Or does your local police force have affection for the people they’ve come to know and protect? Call them up. I’m curious to hear what they have to say.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! 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