The published California LEO pay is in "total compensation", which includes benefits and maybe retirement contributions. Police work hourly, not salary, so prob

The published California LEO pay is in "total compensation", which includes benefits and maybe retirement contributions. Police work hourly, not salary, so probably not too difficult to have a base pay of $100k and some overtime to get to total comp of $200k. I'm not defending sociopaths with badges, but the $200k doesn't sound outlandish to me, especially if the department is on a hiring freeze. It's expensive to hire talent (which is what a trained officer is) in California.