As a 20 year retired LEO, I am embarrassed by stories such as this. I always thought of law enforcement as a career not a job. I’ve made mistakes, but I don’t think they were egregious as those I’ve been reading about on FR lately.
I can think of many reasons why we are in this position today and all of them deal with pushing promotions of low-experienced officers into the command ranks.
In my own department,you needed 5 years experience as a patrol officer in order to take a promotional exam. Now you can be promoted in only 2 years. These young command officers then leave the streets and work in bureaus and become the Chiefs that make decisions that impact all.
I look back on my own career and think about the “crusty” sergeants I worked for and am thankful for their years of experience that I was the beneficiary of.
It’s a shame the way the profession is headed.
Just one opinion.
Thanks for your service and for sharing your observations. There is much to be said for the concept of time-in-grade.
OTOH, it was news because the other hundreds of thousands of officers did their job perfectly, but you won't hear about that...