>

Your good cops are going to be someone who is motivated for the right reasons, and has good applicable skills and is willing to learn.
A good agency will give the required training, the equipment, pay, and security people want.
Memphis pd has none of these things and the people applying have none of the traits required because if they did they would work elsewhere.
The number of people who would actually make decent cops is very low. It used to be that a ton of people would try to get in, and the drop out rate was very high. These days agencies are desperate and willing to hire anybody with a pulse
no shit. that cop couldn't run a quarter block, yet somehow got on a special crime unit. >

It should be made clear that the officers who killed Tyre Nichols were hired before Memphis began lowering their requirements, and were not a product of that new hiring initiative. >


It should be made clear that the officers who killed Tyre Nichols were hired before Memphis began lowering their requirements, and were not a product of that new hiring initiative.

Most important facts of the story right here. Sounds like someone is trying to obfuscate the facts >

Comes off to me like they had to set an already low bar even lower. >

Or ease up on the requirements of the drug testing or background tests.  I know a few people that want to be cops to help their community, but can't because they have prior low-level drug charges from when they were like 18-20ish
The root cause of it all is the ridiculously corrupt laws they're expected to enforce, though. >

A lot of departments actually don't care about records like that, as long as they're honest about it or it wasn't recent. I am acquainted with a guy who was a cop for years, and then later a police chief, and currently teaches classes on civil rights and de-escalation techniques. He said that in his youth him and a bunch of his buddies got drunk and broke into a restaurant that was closing, forced their way into the back and made themselves food. Got some burglary charges, still got hired by police later because he was honest and apologetic about it, and hadn't had any charges in the years since.
This guy also got denied before that because of the old height requirement, that got done away with because it was both sexist and racist and only put there to exclude most women and many minorities, such as himself. So his height was more of a problem than his criminal record. >


lot of departments actually don't care about records like that,

I'm sure some don't, but I have heard from others about superiors and unofficial policies that discourage officers from drinking, doing drugs, or even associating with non-leos who might do those things in their free time. >

Yep, but that's different from a minor criminal record from years ago, that's current behavior. >

Fair enough.  That's the relaxed standards I'm talking about.  Let normal people apply because nobody wants to take the shit cops put up with if the only people they are expected to associate with are other cops.  I would love to help my community, but I draw a hard line between my work life and personal life and law enforcement doesn't respect that.  I have friends and don't want the only people I hang out with to be coworkers.  Don't blame anyone for not wanting to jump into a position like that.  It's not the work.  It's the people you would be forced to associate with while cutting off your real friends.  That is how a cult works. >

I was told by a different police chief I was acquainted with that his biggest tip for staying sane while doing the job was to have non-leo friends for this very reason. You can't let your job become your whole life, but that's easy to do with things like policing. >

Oh, good. We need more badly behaved people with power and guns on the street >

We don't exactly have a line of studs waiting kn the wings >

Yup. The answer is probably to increase taxes and pay cops a lot better, while also increasing the education requirements to become a cop. Make it a destination job.
The issue is that raising taxes doesn't lead to reelection and raising the minimum requirements to become a cop may well lead to the same race discrepancies that you see in other professional fields like attorneys and doctors. >

The median income in memphis is 26,000 a year. A quarter of the city lives below the poverty line. The police chief makes $275,000 a year, the exact amount we spend on the  homeless. Paying them better isn't the answer.  Higher standards, less work, an end to traffic stops for anything other than extreme speeding is the beginning of the answer. You already can't get them to do simple things like write a report for your stolen catalytic converter or finding your stolen car. Why pay more when they already don't do shit. >

The increase in pay is to attract better candidates. How much does your average cop make, not the police chief? I honestly don't know. If all you do is increase training/require more qualifications, you are going to get even less qualified people, not more. >

These lowered hiring standards have also included more pay in the form of signing bonuses though. That's not attracting better quality employees, it's just getting anyone they can in to do the job. 
The problem isn't too little pay, it's that more and more people are becoming aware of what policing actually is, and it's scaring away a lot of recruits. People see all the police brutality going on, see how police departments co-sign it and cover it up as much as they can, and understand that this is all just standard operating procedure for cops, and it makes people think twice about whether they want to actually do that as a career. 
They know if they join up there's a good chance they'll be expected to break the law along with everyone else in their unit or else become someone nobody else trusts or even that they'll have to become an informant that becomes targeted by all the other cops for breaking ranks. It's no wonder that good recruits don't want to become cops in the same numbers that naive people used to want to. >

So your opinion is that good people see bad things happening, but instead of joining the police to change these bad things, they turn down these nice bonuses because they are afraid to become bad? >


joining the police to change these bad things

Do you think there are a lot of people who are so arrogant as to see an utterly corrupt industry and profession who think "if they hire me as a rookie cop, I'll change the whole system"? There might be some people who are like that, but I'd have to imagine they're very few and far between. And even the ones who do think that, how would they do so if not by becoming an informant against other cops?
Most people would look at an institution that's a complete corrupt shambles and think "no thanks, I'll go pursue a career where I won't be expected to break the law on a regular basis or become ostracized by my coworkers and supervisors." Or even if they do want to do some good, how many think "I want to become a cop so I can collect information on police corruption and then testify against my future coworkers"? That's not the career path many people would choose, to set out to become some kind of professional whistleblower or martyr. >

I can't get mad about it. 
I can't imagine someone with good job prospects seeking out that job unless they had ties to it through family or military background. You'd have to pay me 150k a year for me to consider it. >

I think this is the issue that a lot of people on here don’t want to acknowledge. The majority of people would never even consider applying to be a cop, even if the pay was $150K. I’m guessing there are a lot of people on here who were raised and live in middle class areas and actively avoid spending time in the bad parts of town. Sure they might drive through those parts but they aren’t visiting parks, getting gas, buying food, or hanging out there. Then they wonder why there aren’t more people that share their world views and experiences applying to be police and have to not only patrol those bad parts but also respond to possibly dangerous situations there.