If you've always wanted to become a cop, consider moving to Michigan.
For $1,200, you can join the Oakley Police Department as a "reserve police officer." You'll get a uniform, a bulletproof vest, and a gun, as well as a police badge. And you can carry the gun "almost anywhere in the state, including places that people with normal gun permits can't," Vocativ reports.
Vocativ adds that many of these reservists aren't even Oakley residents, and they include everyone from doctors and lawyers to NFL players. The program started when Robert Reznick became Oakley's new police chief in 2008 after the old police chief was allegedly "caught stalking a teenage girl." Vocativ reports that Reznick says the town has roughly 50 reservists. But when the town asked Reznick to release the reservists' names, he said that doing so would put them at risk for ISIS attacks.
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Reznick sees the department's initiative as a positive one for the town, because it has raised a considerable amount of funding for Oakley. But others are concerned. "There's no way to put a number on these people, which is part of the larger problem," David LeMontaine, president of the Police Officers Association of Michigan, told Vocativ. And the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards as well as the state's attorney general are investigating the program. Reznick, however, isn't worried, saying he hasn't broken any laws.
