There are numerous reasons why some law enforcement agencies are having trouble recruiting new officers.

A story in Sunday’s Star Tribune described the struggle in Anoka County, where there were 294 applicants for deputy positions in 2015, down from 522 in 2010. Anoka County Sheriff James Stuart blames the decline, in part, on increased scrutiny of police conduct in the wake of highly publicized incidents, such as the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by a white police officer last year in Ferguson, Missouri.

“My concern is as we look forward and we see this — for lack of a better term — war being waged on our protectors, the good-hearted people are not going to want to take on the job anymore,” Stuart told a reporter.

From all accounts, Aitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Steven M. Sandberg was one of the “good-hearted” who answered the call to protect and serve. On Sunday, he lost his life doing exactly that. Sandberg, who joined the department in 1991, was shot and killed in a struggle with a suspect he was monitoring at St. Cloud Hospital.

Race wasn’t a factor in Sandberg’s death: The suspect, Danny Leroy Hammond, was white. But we can add Sandberg to the growing list of law enforcement officers whose on-duty deaths reinforce the inherent dangers in public safety work. His death likely will give pause to anyone considering a career in public safety in Minnesota. Sadly, we all know he won’t be the last sheriff’s deputy or police officer killed in the line of duty.

Sandberg, 60, leaves behind a wife and daughter and the community he proudly served for more than 20 years. Dozens of police vehicles escorted the hearse carrying his body from St. Cloud to the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office in St. Paul on Sunday afternoon.

It was a fitting tribute for a man who died trying to fulfill the mission of his department — “safeguarding the lives and property of the citizens and visitors to all 1,828 square miles of Aitkin County.”

 

— Minneapolis Star Tribune, Oct. 19