BigMikeFromOleMiss
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Have you had any LEO trouble for OC? Arrested etc?
Have you had any LEO trouble for OC? Arrested etc?
Pay issues are not really a vald an excuse for poor performance. It stinks thatthey are not compensated in accordance with the risks theyface daily butmost LEOs know full well they won't get premium salaries when they choose to become LEOs.Although things have improved in the past few years, police work in this state often pays poorly. As a result, some small-town departments and rural counties have serious recruiting problems and will settle for most any non-felon who can fog a mirror. Part-time officers, who are required to have only half the training hours of a full-time officer, make up nearly half the staff of some of these agencies. Further, MS allows many officers to work for up to a year without certification... often without any real training whatsoever. Yes, standards need to be tightened and the bar should be raised, but that requires money so obviously things won't be changing a lot in the near future.
Having said all that, I'll say that most officers I know are doing the job to the best of their ability and with the best of intentions. Nevertheless, if you are expecting to encounter a well-educated, highly-trained police professional on that traffic stop or public OC contact, you may be seriously disappointed. And unless you've been morbidly curious about the whole Taser experience or are looking for a test case at any cost, you'd do best to avoid being verbally resistive, surrender your weapon when he asks for it, and generally do just what the nice officer says
In a slightly more perfect world, theremight be plenty of top-notch people willing to step up and do the job for whatever is offered, pay for their own continuing education and training, etc. This is not reality in MS. I'm not trying to attack police officers. Many fit the description above (I like to think I do). Unfortunately, it's tough to fill the rosters with quality officers in the typical county or small town which pays part-timers $8/hr (or relies on unpaid reserves), offers no in-service training, and either waits as long as they can legally get away with before sending their people for basic training or allows officers to shuffle from one agency to another and back to avoid certification deadlines.Pay issues are not really a vald an excuse for poor performance. It stinks thatthey are not compensated in accordance with the risks theyface daily butmost LEOs know full well they won't get premium salaries when they choose to become LEOs.