With public support for police declining, morale within the police department is also on the downslide. On Wednesday, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said the latest incidents have dramatically affected the culture in the APD.

“Across the country, morale is down with police departments, and I think ours is down tenfold,” she said.

The strike comes on the heels of the resignations of the entire 57-member Buffalo Police Department Emergency Response Team following the suspensions of two officers who were seen shoving a 75-year-old protester on video, the New York Post reported.

The activist, Martin Gugino, is in serious, but stable condition after hitting the ground hard enough that blood visibly poured from his ear, the Post reported.

John Evans, president of the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, said the officers resigned out of “disgust” for the treatment of their peers.

“Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders,” Evans said.

The officers are still employed, but they will no longer be active on the team.

Since scrutiny toward BPD has increased, cases like that of Black police officer Cariol Horne have reemerged in the public consciousness. As Blavity previously reported, Horne was fired by the department in 2008 after she stopped a white officer from putting a man in a chokehold during an arrest in 2006.

The Buffalo Common Council voted this week and decided to ask the state's Attorney General Letitia James to investigate Horne’s case, per NBC News. Horne revealed that she was booed by other cops when she attended a recent protest.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Police Staff Inspector Joseph Bologna was applauded by more than 100 officers Monday after he turned himself in on charges of aggravated assault. The charges follow the discovery of a video in which he is seen hitting a Temple University student with a baton.

Vince-Champion

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