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I said this on another thread, but it bears reiterating. Most cops don’t make tremendous money. The average is pulled higher by some notable large agencies (Mass State Police, IL) that start 80-100k and make much more later in their careers. Many police officers don’t make half of that.

On top of that — crappy shifts, weekends and overnights (and if you work overnight, guess what, the courts are open during the day and don’t care that an appearance happens when you’re off-duty), most holidays. Interacting with druggies and drugs, homeless people, and criminals constantly when most of us have the luxury of avoiding that kind of stuff. When the rest of us are Monday-morning quarterbacking all this chaos, there are cops in burned out neighborhoods dealing with violent protestors for the 5th day in a row, knowing that if they make a mistake amidst the stress, they’re out of a job.

Yes, many cops can retire earlier than most of us and get a good pension. After all the of above, I’d say they’ve earned it. There are some fatties riding a desk and taking it easy. Beat cops don’t have it easy.

We can talk about how everyone has it hard. Well, in my field, I’ve worked long hours constantly and a 40 week is like a solar eclipse. multi-day marathons to fix problems while sleeping and showering in the office, overnights, come in on weekends to deal with emergencies. I’ve had to work at times when nobody else was in the building. Worked holidays. From what I can see, I have it way easier than police officers do.