“Not very high requirements, if you ask me.”
well really...in small towns it is very difficult to have high standards when they cannot afford to pay them well or invest in excellent training.
I look at our small town police force and most of them are decent folks. I can think of a few that you would describe as excellent - and God bless them because they don’t get paid much.
But there IS a certain element out there - the overly aggressive guy with a chip on his shoulder who is very eager to harrass people.
You see this type of guy getting in bar fights when he’s off duty.
It was reported today that the local PD there does not require psychological screening, which if done right is a reliable and tested way to weed out undesirable characters. For a few hudred dollars a candidate, this could very likely have been avoided. It's not a new idea either. I did police candidate screenings for quite awhile back in the 80's and 90's and caught some real psychopaths who would otherwise have been hired and issued a badge and a gun.
Not very high requirements, if you ask me.
Our local department's ranks include a convicted drug felon, caught trying to bring a package of 1000+ doses of Schedule 2 narcotic into our community via the US Mail.
He now has a department-issued Glock handgun and an AR15.