People like to feel like they’re appreciated and make a difference. In crime-friendly California, police don’t, so they’re headed to Texas.
Hundreds of California cops are fleeing to Texas to escape ‘soft-on-crime’ policies they say have made their jobs ‘pointless’, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Rank-and-file officers up to department chiefs have hit out at state legislators, claiming a succession of ‘anti-law enforcement’ policies have made their work impossible.
Overworked and unsupported, they have instead taken up jobs in Texas and other states that are seen as tough on crime.
Evan Leona, 38, who ditched his job as a detective in a multi-agency gang unit in Fresno, California, to work for Denton Police in Texas, in 2022, said he had met ‘more than a hundred officers’ in the Dallas / Fort Worth area who had fled California.
‘There are five officers who have come from various agencies in California on my shift alone in Denton,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘The justice system just works a lot better here.’
At least in Texas, we don’t have a one-party state that’s institutionally hostile to police and the rule of law. Some locales in Texas have suffered spiking crime rates thanks to stupid policies and Soros-backed DAs (I’m looking at you, Austin), but Democrat-run California is hostile to law enforcement from top to bottom, wants to put felons back on the streets and wants to tax lawful gun owners out of existence.
Leona said the majority of those who leave headed to Texas, with others finding work in states such as Montana and Arizona.
It comes as the Golden State is hemorrhaging thousands of police every year, with numbers down by more than 5,000 since 2019.
There are now fears that high-crime Californian cities are suffering a brain drain in law enforcement, leaving the public unprotected as criminals run riot.
Just like Republicans said would happen. What are the odds?
Ray Bottenfield, a former Santa Monica College Police Captain who retired to Hewitt, Texas, admitted it had become increasingly difficult to retain or recruit officers due to the lack of support from the state.
‘When you’re getting beaten up constantly, your cost of living is getting worse and you’re dealing with all this political stuff, it is overwhelming,’ he told DailyMail.com.
Many in law enforcement blame controversial legislation including Proposition 47 and 57 for turning prisons into ‘revolving doors’ and putting their lives at risk.
Proposition 47 legalized shoplifting. Proposition 57 created legal revolving doors to put felons back on the street.
Gina Miller, a former deputy at San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, told DailyMail.com that California’s legal system had left officers feeling ‘like whatever they did was pointless’.
The 37-year-old moved to Texas in 2021 and now works for Lewisville Police Department, around 25 miles north of Dallas.
She said her work now had a purpose again, adding: ‘If I take someone to jail they’re actually going to stay in jail until they see a judge.’
Officer Miller said some of her former California colleagues had quit to take up desk jobs tackling welfare fraud because they no longer felt safe patrolling the streets.
In particular, she hit out at Proposition 57, which she claims has let violent offenders onto the streets.
Put forward by then-Governor Jerry Brown and passed by voters in 2016, the law was designed to reduce prison overcrowding by offering the possibility of early parole for non-violent offenders.
But critics highlighted a loophole that meant offenses such as domestic violence and assault with a deadly weapon were not included under a list of violent offenses.
It came under the spotlight after it was revealed that Smiley Martin, a suspect in a 2022 mass shooting in Sacramento that left six dead, was released early from a ten-year sentence for domestic violence and assault under provisions set out in Proposition 57.
Miller claims the law has also put officers’ lives at risk by opening the door for violent criminals.
The officer, whose last assignment during her 11-year stint at San Bernadino was in the relatively safe and affluent city of Rancho Cucamonga, said four of her colleagues at the Sheriff’s Department were shot during her final six months.
One of them, Sergeant Dominic Vaca, 43, was killed after he was shot pursuing a motorcycle without a license plate in 2021.
There is no indication that the suspect, Bilal Winston Shabazz, had been released early under Proposition 57.
But Miller said such policies had created a general lawlessness within the state, leaving officers and the public feeling unsafe.
She recalled a time she took a man to jail for putting a loaded gun to his wife’s head, only for him to be released the same day.
‘I got into this job to try to help people and make a difference,’ she said. ‘It was heartbreaking to be telling this victim, “I know your husband just tried to kill you, but he’s already out of jail, so just call us if he comes back”.
‘To see their faces, it wears you down. You’re like: “This is stupid, because I can’t do anything for anybody”.’
Officer Leona, 38, who spent five years in Tulare County before serving in Fresno County Sheriff’s Office for a decade, said he was hospitalized following an assault by a violent criminal.
He said the suspect, who was ‘presumably high on narcotics’, had been chasing school children before running into a stranger’s garden.
A standoff with police ensued.
‘At one point, he hit me over the head with a board,’ he recounted. ‘I hit him with my baton. He picked me up and threw me through a sliding glass window into the kitchen of this lady’s house.
‘I was bleeding all over the place. He was bleeding. We’re rolling around in the kitchen.
‘It took eight officers to finally subdue him. I broke my hand. I had to get sutures on my face.
‘Another officer broke his wrist and a third officer had to get sutures or stitches with it.
‘He was only in custody for a couple months. And then he got released.’
Miller also claimed Proposition 47 had turned California’s prisons into ‘revolving doors’.
The measure, passed by voters in 2014, reclassified some nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors, including shoplifting where the value of the stolen property does not exceed $950.
It has been blamed by some, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and California retail head Rachel Michelin for a rise in thefts after scores of stores in the state suffered brazen heists.
Sounds like there’s a grand bargain to be had: California sends Texas all its good law enforcement officers, and in return Texas sends California all the homeless drug addicts and illegal aliens so beloved by the Democratic Party over ordinary, law-abiding citizens. Then we’ll see which state prospers more. (Except we’re already seeing it. People have been leaving California for Texas for over a decade.)
Decline is a choice, and California voters have decided that they side with the Democratic Party and George Soros in embracing high crime rates and treating police and Republicans as the villains.
Now they get to live with the consequences of their choices.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags: Bilal Winston Shabazz, California, Crime, Democrats, Denton, Dominic Vaca, Evan Leona, Gina Miller, Lewisville, police, Proposition 47 (California), Proposition 57 (California), Santa Monica, Social Justice Warriors, Texas
The problem with California isn’t so much the people of California as the professional politicians infesting the place. Few of the actual voters voted for or wanted this crap; they were scammed into voting for it by lies told during the initiative process. Then, the actual propositions that they voted in by a large minority, like the “no racial preferences” one all got sidelined by the politicians, because they didn’t like them.
The electorate of California is, in the end, responsible for all this. After all, they voted for these politicians and haven’t thrown them out of office, but there is both culpability and responsibility on the side of the scummy politicians of the state.
Case in point: Proposition 13, the infamous cap on property taxes. That was meant to rein in the political creatures of the state by cutting the source for their funding, but the actual issue wasn’t ever the funding, it was the incredible waste and idiotic spending of the politicians. That little problem was not addressed directly by Prop 13, and here we are… The politicians resented the message sent them, and they actively worked around everything to suborn the spirit and intent of the Prop 13 package, resulting in worse services and even more ridiculous spending.
California is likely a lost cause. The Constitution does not have a mechanism in place for failed state governments, but I fear that it’s going to have to come up with something akin to bankruptcy and a return to Territorial status for California.
Either that, or sell it to the Chinese or Mexicans. If they’d want it. My vote would be that once El Salvador’s current president is done there, we hire him as administrator of California and other failed states…
“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,..”—USSC Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
You have to ask yourself, “If this is true, why are taxes so much higher in those political jurisdictions where crime is rampant?”
I believe the converse is true; taxes are the price we pay for barbarism. To wit: in ancient Israel, Jews were subject to a 10% tax on the INCREASE of their crops and herds. If your labors produced no increase, you taxes (lit. “tithe”) were a big, fat zero.
This encouraged the civil authority to hunt down and eliminate from society those elements that preyed on the productive. So let it be acknowledged that taxes (the tithe) were a reward to the civil servants who ensured the protection of property rights.
What does this have to do with those cops who fled California? In the absence of legal restraints, whether through prosecutorial neglect or manpower shortages, crime will flourish. Barbarism will gain ground.
To arrest this trend, taxes will have to be increased dramatically or the life, liberty and property of California residents will be threatened with destruction..
Flee apace, ye Californians. There is not enough money in the state’s treasury to arrest the landslide of depravity and ruin that awaits you.
The one thing I don’t get about blaming Prop 47…the felony theft level under Prop 47 is $950.
In Texas, it’s $2,500.(See TPC 31.03(e))
So it’s not really about where the felony threshold is, it’s the willingness of the prosecutor’s office to prosecute, and the judges to put them in jail.
[…] TEND TO GO WHERE THEY’RE WANTED: Police Flee High Crime California For Texas. “Sounds like there’s a grand bargain to be had: California sends Texas all it’s good law […]
“The Constitution does not have a mechanism in place for failed state governments, but I fear that it’s going to have to come up with something akin to bankruptcy and a return to Territorial status for California.”
Possibly Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution could be used. In part it states, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government . . .” Some citizens of California could file suit alleging the state government has become so dysfunctional it is no longer a republican form of government in that it has been structured to prevent the popular will from prevailing.
A long shot, but if that is all you have, you might as well go for it.
Here’s something about the police exodus I doubt anyone will say out loud:
When police officers retire or move on from a situation where they lack support or the job becomes more and more difficult, who do you imagine moves on first? Surely it would be those whose performance and skills would make them most attractive elsewhere. And who does that leave? Those who are least attractive as job candidates.
So it isn’t just the exodus, it’s also the quality of the departments that remain.
And I’m going to make a wild guess that wherever the next police outrage the Antifa/BLM types latch onto will be far more likely with a police force that is both understaffed, and poorer in quality.
Downward spiral.
“Decline is a choice, and California voters have decided that they side with the Democratic Party”
Cacafornia VOTERS get very little say in what happens there, and haven’t for the last 10+ years. Voter fraud is legal there, and widespread. Which was one of MANY reasons why we sold our home in Sacramento, CA, packed up everything, and moved to San Antonio, TEXAS. Even though I wasn’t a cop; just an old retired guy who wanted to enjoy his retirement in peace.
I’m amazed CA has any cops left at all.
@Septimus
History proves you correct. Take a gander at the killings by police which BLM (etc) latched onto. These incidents happened in already-🔵 jurisdictions.
By the time these incidents happened, each of these jurisdictions had a powerful Democrat council, city hall, etc for some time … which had already cut police funding and gutted the force of its quality members (to create a slush fund for liberal pet projects, natch).
Back when it was Michael Brown and Darren Wilson, a programmer friend of mine said, “if we want fewer of these incidents, we need to raise police salaries.” Low salary -> low-quality recruits + low-quality leadership -> shitty events happening -> “defund the police” -> …
Vicious cycle and the wheel just keeps turning. If they really want to arrest (!) the decline in quality police actions, they gotta pay more.
California has cops because of their State and city pension system(s). Check the retirement benefits of San Fran garbagemen @ $100K / yr, and union prison guards about the same.
The cops leaving are not only the better ones, they are the mid career ones, who have decided that the promise of a retirement pension, and their years invested into it, are not worth the likelyhood that they will not survive to collect it, or that there will be no money to pay it when they retire.
Most of them will also have families, which is another commitment to the future that they must make work.
[…] Via Insty, I see this little story: […]
HOW says said…
“By the time these incidents happened, each of these jurisdictions had a powerful Democrat council, city hall, etc for some time … which had already cut police funding and gutted the force of its quality members (to create a slush fund for liberal pet projects, natch).
Back when it was Michael Brown and Darren Wilson, a programmer friend of mine said, “if we want fewer of these incidents, we need to raise police salaries.” Low salary -> low-quality recruits + low-quality leadership -> shitty events happening -> “defund the police” -> …
Vicious cycle and the wheel just keeps turning. If they really want to arrest (!) the decline in quality police actions, they gotta pay more.”
You’re on to something with this, but the basis of your premise about Michael Brown is false. If anyone ever deserved to be shot by a cop, it was him. He assaulted Officer Wilson, and tried to gain control of his weapon. After having shaken down a local business, which he was in the habit of doing.
What “went wrong” with that whole thing was that the usual suspects glommed on to the incident, lied about it, and then created the ensuing shitstorm out of nothing. Just like with George Floyd, who was an overdose victim that Officer Chauvin followed protocols taught by the very department that threw him under the bus… Which the judge at trial would not allow evidence of to be presented. Chavin is a political prisoner, a scapegoat.
You are absolutely right about the amazing ju-jitsu move pulled by the Democrats in these situations, and it’s equally incomprehensible that the Republicans haven’t pointed that out. But, since they’re captured co-conspirators of the Democrat establishment, we should not be surprised. The reality is that the cities where all these abuses occur have been run by Democrats since forever… The raw fact is, the Democrats have had the political power and oversight over all of these “corrupt” and “abusive” police departments, and yet somehow, never get held responsible for the varied and sundry abuses committed by them. Who’s the mayor of Minneapolis, again?
Oh, and let’s not forget that other stellar product of the Democratic machine in Minneapolis, the officer that shot Justine Damond. Mohamed Noor was recently released early from his 12 1/2 year sentence… No word on the assholes that pushed his affirmative-action ass through the training program, despite a multitude of things that would have resulted in a white candidate being thrown out.
No, the situations in all these cities are the responsibility of one group: The politicians, mostly Democrat, that run them.
And, it won’t be mere money that fixes things. The sad fact is, you can’t pay people enough to put up with this bullshit, not when the prosecutors, the courts, and the legislatures all refuse to back the cops.
I ain’t sure where we’re headed, but I foresee a rise in vigilantism. Any system failing to fulfill its functional purpose will be routed around, and the US judicial/law enforcement system of today is actively being torn down around us. Something will replace it, even if it is the Mexican cartels.
@Kirk
I ain’t sure where we’re headed, but I foresee a rise in vigilantism.
TBH I feel like that’s what Democrats have wanted all along. From 2008 to 2016, as various crappy things happened (George Zimmerman, the 4 officers shot in Dallas, the 2 officers killed in Houston, etc), I truly believe they expected Red Staters to start bringing the law into their own hands.
From 2016 to 2020, as the powers that be shoved more and more horseshit into our faces, I believe they wanted (what they would label) a violent backlash. And again from 2020 to now.
I’m sure they wanted it to happen. Then they’d have a put excuse (they don’t need a reason, just an excuse) to locking up more conservatives, to raid more of their nonprofits, to enact more gun-control, and in general to be more openly tyrannical than they’ve already done.
Instead, honestly all the “ammo” they’ve gotten is:
… Charlottesville (and because that incident was so isolated, I’m disinclined to take it on face value)
… J6 (and boy howdy did they ever use that to their benefit, and we know they were behind the incident anyway)
… Whitmer kidnapping plot (yet another hoax)
I’m happily surprised with the restraint the USA has shown in the past 16 years, in spite of all of the hoaxes, psyops, slander, intimidation, and decline.