Tuesday's Rochester Today show on KROC-AM included discussion of some of the unseen impacts of the media coverage of police brutality cases and protests.

Tom Ostrom, who joins Andy Brownell nearly every Tuesday and Friday in the KROC-AM studio, socialized over the weekend with a veteran Rochester Police Officer and shared some of his observations and analysis of the impact of the intensified coverage of allegations of police brutality throughout the nation. Most notably, the officer related how enrollment in law enforcement training programs throughout the nation has plummeted this year, and it's speculated the nearly daily coverage of the police brutality cases and the accompanying protests are the cause.

On the flip side of the coin, a Twin Cities TV station covered a case where a citizen came to the rescue of a police officer last week. The KMSP-TV report on the actions of Jeremy Wachsmuth is inspiring. The TV station's report says the Fridley man witnessed a female Coon Rapids officer being pinned to the ground by a criminal suspect, who was attempting to grab the officer's gun. According to the KMSP report, Wachsmuth stopped his car and ran across several lanes of traffic before he tackled the suspect and helped the officer subdue him.

Hopefully, a story like that provides those in law enforcement with some encouragement in these tough times.

Rochester Police and the Olmsted County Sheriff's Department will be holding their annual Law Enforcement Memorial on Friday morning at the Soldier's Field Veterans Memorial. The ceremony, which is open to the public, begins at 10 a.m.

 

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