Major US Cities Risk Losing One-Third Of Their Police Forces Due To Vaccine Mandates

As crime rates surge, so are vaccine mandates — and resistance by police to those mandates. That means major cities across the United States risk losing one-third or more of their police forces, hesitant about getting the COVID-19 shot.

In Chicago, more than 4,500 employees of the Chicago Police Department — about one-third of both officers and civilian employees — refused to disclose their vaccine status. Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the city’s Fraternal Order of Police are in a political standoff.

Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara said last week, “It’s safe to say that the city of Chicago will have a police force at 50% or less for this weekend coming up.”

A real disruption also soon could hit Los Angeles, where the city’s vaccine mandate deadline is in December. Last month, employees of the Los Angeles Police Department filed a federal lawsuit opposing the city’s vaccine mandate. Likewise, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told The Associated Press earlier this month, “I don’t want to be in a position to lose 5[%], 10% of my workforce overnight.” He added that he won’t enforce the county-level mandate.

“It’s impossible to know how long this potentially lasts. We could see extreme shortages,” Jason Johnson, a former deputy commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department, now president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, told The Daily Signal. “Are cities going to enforce this mandate? There is greater risk to public safety by enforcing the mandate than not enforcing the mandate.”

Two-thirds of Baltimore Police Department employees got at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, below the Maryland state average of 85%, Baltimore’s WJZ-TV reported. Those numbers are similar to Chicago’s. – READ MORE