To be sure, police do a dangerous job and take tremendous personal risks to safeguard the public. Most officers just want to do their jobs and go home alive.
Most people that take jobs as police officers are taking them because they're good jobs. Many who go into these jobs are doing it because it's good work.
When you have police officers who abuse citizens, you erode public confidence in law enforcement. That makes the job of good police officers unsafe.
As far as police go, if officers are really that scared or timid [on the streets], maybe they shouldn't be police officers. Their job is to protect and serve and they're supposed to be the bravest of the brave.
Never once has Republican world said hey, maybe we should look into how police officers are carrying out their solemn public responsibility to serve and protect. No - no right wing website in America is investigating or will ever investigate how well police officers do their jobs.
Police officers put the badge on every morning, not knowing for sure if they'll come home at night to take it off.
When I talk to Chicagoans who live in our most violence-prone neighborhoods, they do not hate the police. In fact, they tell me they want more cops and fewer gangs. They do not want more officers in cars just driving through their communities. They want officers on the beat in their neighborhoods.
Why wouldn't the police officers be on edge? Why wouldn't they be alert? And why wouldn't people in the community trust police officers? Because they are consistently harassing them, and they have experience with police officers doing awful things.
Missouri's public safety officers and first responders courageously and selflessly take on tremendous risks each time they answer a call. Each time they respond, they are quietly reaffirming their solemn commitment to risk their own lives to protect others. For this, they deserve our thanks, and continued prayers and support.
And it is crucial of course that chief constables are able to make decisions within their budgets about how they deploy their police officers to the greatest effect to ensure that they're able to do the job that the public want them to do.
People have this belief that actors are able to go out there and say, 'Oh I choose this job,' but most of the time we're just taking the job we can get. We don't just get offered thousands of jobs; we might earn one job a year and that's the one we'll take because we've got to pay the rent.
We need to hire more black police officers in this country because these are good jobs, and African Americans should have their fair share of good jobs. But we shouldn't do it because we think that's going to change policing. We have to push for police reform in other ways.
Without a doubt, the most fiscally responsible way to increase the number of officers on our streets is to mobilize uniformed officers in administrative jobs and to use civilian employees to fill those jobs.
I knew police officers have a very difficult job. They have to make split second decisions that will impact not only the communities they serve but their families, their own personal lives.
Many people in this world do jobs that are dangerous and where their life is at risk and they feel that there is some kind of value to their job I guess that's how I feel about what I do. There is a social function to documentary photography that is very important and it requires people to take risks.
The thing I preach constantly is do your research; build your knowledge base. Don't just go into business on a whim or a prayer - and don't think 'I'm an entrepreneur so I have to take risks'. Entrepreneurs don't take risks. They take calculated risks; only the good ones.
From maintaining public safety to educating our children to providing critical services, our police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers, librarians and so many other public employees are there for us when we need them most.