Dear Rick:
I appreciated your article about our police. I wish you would do some research and write more about them. I have several friends and acquaintances who are cops.
From what I have been told, they are vastly underpaid, especially for what they are called to do to put their lives on the line on a daily basis. They have not received a raise in a number of years, even though the Pensacola City Council voted themselves one.
I don’t know who determines who gives our police a raise, but it sounds like something is amiss. I’m told they are also understaffed, which keeps them from being able to recruit and increases their workload. They are trained to have a hair-trigger-finger but they are warned from higher up not to get any bad press. I’m sure they deal with a lot of stress as it is, but I have a feeling it may be worse than ever before.
I really don’t think our men and women are appreciated to the degree they deserve. It would be nice if you interviewed some people in the police department other than the police chief or someone who only wants to make things look good. I would like to know exactly what their salaries are for one thing.
Gulf Breeze has signs posted that say, “We Support Our Law Enforcement Officers.†I would like to have one and see some in Pensacola.
Thanks for listening and thanks for your well-done newspaper. I read every issue.
Sincerely,
Bonnie McLean