#Amid Black Lives Matter protests, cops explain what drove them to leave the force

Protesters aren’t the only ones losing faith in law enforcement. Cops themselves are beginning to question their roles amid outcry over excessive force.

Nearly 80% of Americans say police brutality is a “moderately” or “extremely/very” serious problem in US policing, according to a new AP-NORC poll. And a recent flurry of whistleblowers suggests that former and current officers may be more aligned with that sentiment.

Now, former law enforcement officials are beginning to speak out on why recent events might prompt cops to question their loyalty to the force.

“When I saw the George Floyd incident — that was a clarion bell,” said Paula Sophia Schonauer, a 22-year police veteran who retired in 2014. She told The Post that the horrific footage of his death has motivated her to share her demoralizing experience as an officer in Oklahoma City.

“The silence has got to stop,” she said.

Despite a recent increase in police spending, many of the country’s cops — between 33% and 66%, depending on the size of the agency — serve less than five years on the force, according to data produced by the Urban Institute Justice Policy Center and funded by the Department of Justice in 2001. (The DOJ confirmed in an email that this report is the most recent available on the subject.)

We asked four current and former officers from across the US to share some of the experiences that prompted them to turn in their badges for good. While The Post has conducted our own independent verification, some have chosen to be unidentified* for fear of retaliation from former colleagues and other law enforcement supporters.

*Some sources have provided pseudonyms to protect their identities

Paula Sophia Schonauer

54, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; retired early in 2014 after 22 years

It’s been six years now since Paula wore a badge, but when she saw the horrific footage of George Floyd’s death on May 25, anxious memories came rushing back.

“I saw [Minneapolis police officer] Tou Thao and I thought, ‘I really identify with him,’ ” she said. “I’m not excusing his behavior,” but “the reason he did not intervene is because of that [culture of] silence.”

Within the first year after the police academy, Paula witnessed a group of assisting officers using clearly excessive force on a suspect she was pursuing: “They were stomping on him. They were stomping on his legs, his arms, on his back.”

The incident left her feeling “deflated” and wondering if she had what it takes to be an officer. A supervisor later approached her about the incident to ask if she was “OK,” in a tone she describes as being coercive.

“He was trying to determine if I was going to be a ‘good cop,’ ” she said, and she told him, “If I’m ever asked about what happened, I will not lie.”

Paula said she believes she “got a reputation after that” for “not [being] ‘heavy-handed’ enough.” Derisively, they called her “Officer Friendly.” Then, when Paula came out to the force as a trans woman in 2001, she said, her colleagues began to treat her “like they do a lot of citizens.”

When asked what she meant by that, she clarified: “Dehumanizing.”

Due to a lack of complaints on record, the OCPD could not comment to The Post on these individual claims.

Determined to lead by example, she stuck through the years that followed, but now recalls the incessant insulting behavior she endured: increased isolation, forced psychological exams, notes regarding her long hair or manicure. She remembered being openly referred to as a “freak” by her superior and feeling threatened by a colleague for speaking out against “the Lodge” — as in the Fraternal Order of Police, whose national chapter is called the Grand Lodge.

But in 2004 in Oklahoma, she knew stable job opportunities for trans women were “slim.” She stuck it out another decade, then went on to run for an Oklahoma House of Representatives seat immediately upon retirement from the OCPD, losing in a tight primary runoff. Now she’s a professor of social work at the University of Oklahoma.

During her law enforcement career, Paula became so devoted to community policing that she was on a first-name basis with gang members, as opposed to their street “monikers.” She said that sometimes mothers would call her to turn in their sons for arrest — “because they knew I wouldn’t beat them.”

“At that point in my career, I was more afraid of other officers than I was of the citizens that I served.”

Sergeant Gomez*

Early 40s; has served an NYC-area police department for almost 20 years

After close to two decades on the force, Sgt. Gomez said he always hoped “to make a difference” in the organization. But in the wake of protests over the death of George Floyd, he worries that an exodus of “good cops” would only work to reinforce the “bad” ones.

Gomez runs a social media campaign anonymously called Lamplighter Project, which promotes and encourages officers to speak out against misconduct. The grassroots project was inspired by whistleblowing NYPD Medal of Honor recipient Frank Serpico, whose career was adapted for Hollywood in 1973’s “Serpico,” starring Al Pacino.

It was within his first year of employment that he understood why some officers might be compelled to quit early in their careers. He was asked to cooperate with an Internal Affairs investigation of a colleague. Consequently, he gained “a reputation among some people as being a rat,” he said.

Once he became a supervisor, it was up to him to make statements against his officers and even fellow supervisors when necessary. “And so I’ve become sort of a pariah in the police department, because of the ethical stance that I take,” he told The Post.

Working with police whistleblowers has been harrowing work for Gomez, who also teaches criminal justice at the college level. When officers are asked — let alone volunteer themselves — to turn against a fellow officer, “you can be abandoned by a lot of [your friends] virtually overnight, and your whole support circle kind of falls apart,” he said. “So it’s kind of heartbreaking to see, because a lot of them are ethically committed.”

His mission is picking up steam elsewhere, namely among a large group of human rights and civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who are urging members of Congress to include special protections for whistleblowers in current police reform bills.

“I worry about people’s willingness to come forward,” said Gomez, who calls the public criticisms of the Minneapolis PD by several other officers “unprecedented.”

Unfortunately, “usually the response to criticism and protest is to strengthen that ‘thin blue line’ mentality,” he said, referring to the strongly held notion among law enforcement officials that the men and women in blue are what prevents civilization from descending into anarchy — and that police should use all of their power to prevent that.

“I think it’s unhealthy, but is sort of a consequence of the [dangerous] realities of job,” he said.

Aaron C.

Mid-30s, North Carolina; resigned in 2013 after nearly four years on the force

Aaron can remember the exact case that prompted him to leave law enforcement entirely — though the decision was compounded by years of “mismanagement” over “racial and socioeconomic bias.”

“There was a car wreck that I responded to, that ended up being a stolen car,” he told The Post. “I got in a foot pursuit with this person, and we ended up fighting, just the two of us on the ground,” adding that the suspect made multiple attempts to take his holstered gun.

The suspect, “college guy, white kid from [a] rich background,” also appeared to be intoxicated or mentally disturbed, Aaron said. “He got charged with a laundry list of felonies, [including] felony assault on law enforcement . . . He had stolen two cars.”

Ultimately, Aaron was never called in to testify against the suspect. The case was eventually dismissed and “pled down to a DWI.”

“I just was blown away by that,” he said. “That was just the clearest-cut example to me of the bias in the judicial system. White, rich people . . . get away with stuff.”

On the other hand, Aaron said, he’s often been asked to testify in court over minor crimes, such as traffic tickets, charged to a person of color.

“We held a full trial for a stop sign ticket so that we could get that conviction,” he said. Meanwhile, he said, “We let this [white] person who tried to kill an on-duty police officer literally just walk away with a DWI, after being charged with [several] felonies.”

He knows cases like these are indicative of a larger problem in law enforcement, but seeing it firsthand, he said, “I pretty much lost my faith in the justice system.”

Luis Alejo

44, Warner Robins, Georgia; resigned after two years in corrections and two years in law enforcement

Luis Alejo started his career in public service with the Army, where the Mexican immigrant served before gaining American citizenship in 2001. Later, he spent five years as a corrections officer at two facilities in Georgia and was eventually hired by the Centerville Police Department in 2006, until leaving in 2011.

“I saw that the higher-ups didn’t have our backs,” he told The Post of his time as a CO at Smith State Prison in Glennville, Georgia. He handed in his two-week notice to one employer after he overheard a co-worker bragging to four inmates that he would steal Alejo’s souped-up Chevrolet Caprice. He reported the incident to his lieutenant, but no punishment was handed out.

“This guy is basically so comfortable with these high-security inmates that he’s able to say he’s gonna rob and hurt another officer. I’m not cool with that,” he said.

At other points, he felt undermined and unsupported by his superiors in front of inmates, or hung out to dry on his own. “There were times when I literally ran that detention center myself,” Alejo said, referring to his time at McEver Probation Detention Center in Perry, Georgia.

The Georgia Bureau of Corrections has not returned The Post’s request for comment on Luis’ claims.

Finally, at the Centerville PD, he submitted a principled resignation after just a couple years, when a new chief appointed someone with “very little patrol experience” and who “had never worked a crime scene” to a vacant detective position.

After years of feeling overlooked by his employers in law enforcement, Alejo decided to take his talents elsewhere — eventually landing at the Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency in 2012.

Alejo praised the work of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which he said “doesn’t play” when it comes to bringing charges against officers who break protocol, or worse. Unfortunately, he said, “it doesn’t look like other states follow suit.”

“Too many departments have this skewed mentality that an officer can’t be charged in any of the stuff that he does while he’s a police officer,” Alejo said.

“Their favorite response in any shooting is, ‘I feared for my life,’ ” he said. “I tell you what — that is a bulls- -t excuse. If you’re . . . certified to carry a weapon, and have pretty much a license to kill somebody if you have to, you should have enough training [to know] that every situation doesn’t dictate: ‘I feared for my life.’ ”