"One point is, when the city pays cops a poverty wage, don't be surprised when thugs get recruited and stiff like this happens. You get what you pay for. NOPD was vastly underpaid and acted like it."
I agree with you that we horribly under pay our police officers just about everywhere in this country and we ask a lot of them.
That doesn't justify abandoning your duty when you are needed.
If you're not going to do the job, don't take the job.
They took the job and accepted the responsibility.
It's quite possible that police departments could on average get and retain better people if they paid better. However, that does not excuse the actions of those who abandoned their duty when they were badly needed.
It would probably be a good investment to have a means and process to get families of emergency workers to safety in the event of an emergency so that they could concentrate on their duties.
IIRC, I read a post where there were like 25,000 men in Iraq who were lining up for just a few thousand police job openings. Hundreds of them were blown up while waiting in line to apply for the job.
I'm sure the pay is nominal in Iraq. And the level of danger immense. And yet they were there, willing to serve.
All those cops who deserted their post in N.O. do not deserve our understanding. They should be dismissed.