Not really true. The minimum requirements are obviously low. But meeting those requirements and being selected by whatever method they use to select among the candidates only gets you to whatever the police academy is called in that state. They have to graduate from the academy before they end up on the street with a badge and a gun.
Some police forces do require college degrees for new officers or a number of years experience for those transferring in from other forces, but I believe that is the exception rather than the rule.
They have to graduate from the academy before they end up on the street with a badge and a gun.
Yeah. And police academies these days are little more than training seminars on how to play the court system in a way that racks up arrests and tickets. It's not exactly intellectually demanding or confidence inspiring work, as is also evidenced by the proliferation of burger flipper types on patrol who have obviously passed through a police academy somewhere.