Law enforcement nationwide is a less attractive career prospect because of the disrespect law enforcement officers have to contend with in modern times, said Memphis City Council member Worth Morgan.
And it doesn’t help when Memphis cannot offer competitive wages for officers, Morgan told The Tennessee Star this week.
As reported, Memphis voters might get called upon next year to decide whether people who live up to 50 miles away from Shelby County can serve as police officers or firefighters.
This will only happen if seven out of 13 Memphis City Council members decide next month to approve a referendum for the November 2020 elections.
Morgan said he favors allowing people who live up to 50 miles away to serve as police officers in Memphis.
“I think there is more stress and anxiety that comes with the job of being a police officer. Some of the national conversations where, if you talk to officers one-on-one, they might hesitate to admit it, but if they were standing in line in a restaurant, at the gas station, whatever it is, and somebody else would say ‘I would be happy to pick up that officers’ meal.’ They are met now often with scorn,” Morgan said.
“I think some of the attacks on social media and some of the language that has changed around the national conversation has made it more difficult and less attractive to serve for some people,” he added.
Morgan went on to say there is no way to fix that problem legislatively.
“I think nationally the conversation has calmed down and shifted toward other things across the United States. The implementation of body cameras across the Memphis Police Department in the last four years has been a big help,” Morgan said. “We have seen complaints against officers dramatically reduced. The only people who don’t like body cameras are bad citizens and bad cops. And it probably cuts down the bad behavior on both sides.”
Morgan was first elected to the Memphis City Council in 2015, according to Ballotpedia.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Memphis City Council” by Thomas R Machnitzki. CC BY 3.0.
The War on Cops escalated rapidly under the criminal-coddling Obama administration.
We got our first sniff of how bad it would become when Soetero sided against police in the affair with the college professor arrested while trying to get into his own house. He was trying to force a locked door, and cops thought he was just another burglar… like the hundreds they deal with every year…
An honest mistake and no big deal. But the professor and the “president” could not allow such an opportunity to be lost. Soetero criticized the police and strongly hinted at their racism.
Thugs accosted and threatened voters, wearing black panther garb and shouting that they were “the masters now”… and Soetero’s “wingman” Eric Holder refused to move against these race-terrorists.
Incident after incident stacked the deck higher and higher against police, and Soetero never failed to fan the flames. Cops shot dead in their cars, ambushed on calls, highways blocked and war flowed in the streets.
Now we have AN AMERICAN in our White House, and things will eventually turn around, but it’s going to take some time and a lot of effort from us to NOT TOLERATE THIS LIBERAL BS ANYMORE.
Stand by your cops. Stop the stupid “oversight boards”, and for America’s sake STOP VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS, and GO TO THE POLLING BOOTHS EVERY TIME THEYRE OPEN.