Goodhue, Minnesota, made national news in August when the small town’s entire police force resigned and the local police chief said he’d had “zero” applicants following the resignations. Experts say it’s indicative of how law enforcement has been treated the past few years.
Goodhue Police Chief Josh Smith told city officials that he could not find anyone to sign up to join the police force.
“This has been three weeks now, we have zero applicants, and I have zero prospects,” Smith said on July 26. “I’ve called every PD around for the youngest guys out there, getting into the game. There’s nobody getting into the game.”
ENTIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT RESIGNS IN MINNESOTA CITY, LEAVES MAYOR ‘BLINDSIDED’: ‘ZERO APPLICANTS’
Goodhue Mayor Ellen Anderson Buck told local news they felt “blindsided” by the exodus. But some former police leaders and activists say that recent trends have shown them that this “crisis” has been coming for some time.
“I can tell you firsthand the biggest challenge that we hear over and over and over from law enforcement executives is that they cannot hire, and they also cannot retain the officers that they have,” Rev. Markel Hutchins, founder of MovementForward and Faith & Blue, which aims at…
