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Minneapolis: police struggle to recruit new officers after George Floyd's death

Only 57 people applied to become police officers in all of this year, compared with 292 applicants in 2019, said Garrett Parten, a city police spokesman.

Policía de Minneapolis

Chad Davis/ Flickr

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Verónica Silveri Pazos

Minneapolis Police Department spokesman Garrett Parten acknowledged the recruiting battle facing law enforcement in the city following the death of George Floyd in 2020. The official said only 57 people applied to become a police officer in this entire year, compared to 292 applicants in 2019:

You can shout as loud as you want: 'Hire more people!' But if fewer people apply, then it won't change the outcome much. Throughout the country, recruitment has become a problem. There are simply fewer people applying for the job.

Only six recruits graduated from the most recent class in September, when typically, a class can have up to 40 students.

According to Parten, Floyd' s death generated a loss of confidence in law enforcement and protests against the police led to amass exodus of officers. Two years after the Floyd case, Minneapolis still fails to fill hundreds of police force vacancies needed to fight crime.

"Our city needs more police officers."

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stated in August that "the city" needed "more police officers." And he announced a proposal that would allow the hiring of 800 agents to fight crime and increase police funding. The statement came after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of some city residents suing the mayor for failing to hire the minimum number of officers.

In June, Acting City Attorney Peter Ginder called the police exodus "an unprecedented loss of personnel that is not easily corrected" and said Minneapolis officials are working to rebuild the police force:

Mayor Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis Police Department and the city are working in good faith to recruit and hire additional community-oriented law enforcement officers as soon as reasonably possible.

Law enforcement "demonized

The Police Executive Research Forum(PERF) surveyed 184 police agencies nationwide and found that resignations increased 43% between 2019 and 2021 and retirements increased 2%. Overall hiring in the same period fell by 4%.

For his part, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police(FOP), Patrick Yoes, warned a few months ago of the existence of"a crisis" in the structure of the police forces and pointed out that the police have been demonized, which "has eroded the very confidence of the institution":

We see law enforcement officers leaving our profession at a rate we have never seen before. Because of the actions, and the turmoil that has occurred over the last two years, right now we have a labor crisis.... Law enforcement has been demonized by many. It has created a rift within this country and has eroded the very confidence of the institution and profession of law enforcement. And we are paying for it. We are paying for it with increased crime. And we are also paying for it in law enforcement officers.

Likewise, Ian Prior, a former Justice Department official in the Trump Administration, told The Daily Wire that anti-police moves have affected staffing numbers as much as actual budget cuts:

The fact that we see police officers resigning is a direct consequence of the far left's woke agenda to not only cut resources, but also defame and demean law enforcement and, as a result, make those jobs more difficult and dangerous.
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