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Minot Police Department staff difficulties a vexing situation

ust yesterday, a task force of police staff and Minot’s city manager met to begin discussing how to address turnover and recruitment at the Minot Police Department.

On Wednesday, a Minot Daily News article outlined the challenges the department faces and examined some of the possible reasons why it is such a challenge to recruit and retain police officers.

MDN believes the task force meeting and hopeful future meetings are a good idea, because it is both a worrisome and confounding challenge.

As reported Thursday, police salaries don’t seem to be the key problem. While slightly below those of some of North Dakota’s larger cities, the difference isn’t great; and pay is better than many other departments around the state. Furthermore, MDN has opined previously and believes Chief Jason Olson is the right person to lead the department and the force overall does a good job.

While crime in Minot has certainly increased over the years – violent crime included – in large part because of the scourge of drug abuse, this isn’t Chicago. For that matter, Gary, Indiana, 30 miles from Chicago and with a population of just over 76,000 and declining, ranked #3 in murder rate in a recent study. Coming in at number two was Chester, Penn., with a population of 34,000. East St. Louis and its approximate 27,000 population led the list. Obviously smaller towns outside major metros face different challenges than a city like Minot of comparable size but far away from a major metro area.

We aren’t Chester, Penn.

Still, our streets are dangerous for police. Any routine traffic stop can turn ugly fast. If you follow crime and courts, you’ve probably noticed an increase in the number of cases involving assaults on police officers. Athletes are entertainers with incredible skills, but they are not heroes. The men and women of police departments are. Every time an officer leaves for work, that officer is in danger of not coming home.

Still, even with the greater crime in Minot, we aren’t Gary, Indiana.

So, a generally good department with a good chief in a city our size and with solid compensation offered would seem like it would be appealing to an aspiring police officer or someone looking for the quality and pace of life here. Perhaps it is that the department faces the same challenge as other employers have in attracting and retaining employees.

Or perhaps it is a bigger issue and one that can’t be directly addressed at a local or even state level. Over the past 10 years, around the nation police have been routinely abused, antagonized, insulted, slighted and defamed by many pandering mainstream media journalists, in social media postings and by ambitious and dubiously ethical politicians. Yes, there have been incidents when officers have done wrong – very wrong. However in most cases, it has turned out that if police critics invested effort in learning all the facts, controversial incidents were actually the result of myth or officers following exactly what they are trained to do. Police officers are heroes and they used to be treated as what they are – a thin blue line between the public and predators. Now, when they’re not being ordered by politicians to stand down and allow rioters to destroy entire neighborhoods, they’re constantly being cast as the enemy of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth and most in a city such as Minot still know the actual reality.

Departments around the country are having problems similar to those of the Minot Police Department.

At least here, police and the city administration are looking at the local challenges and presumably trying to come up with a strategy to address those challenges.

MDN commends the effort and hopes that there are answers to the recruitment and retention challenges faced by our police.

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