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On the evening of the Bastille Day terrorist attack in Nice, France, in July, I was flying from Boston to Seattle watching the breaking news coverage of the horrific massacre via the onboard television screens. Even with minimal details coming in, it became clear early on that the details that would eventually emerge from the carnage along the Promenade des Anglais would be truly shocking.

At least 84 were killed and more than 200 others were wounded or had sustained other injuries when an attacker used a truck as a weapon, barreled through a security perimeter and mowed down scores of people celebrating France’s independence day.

At the same time, in Dallas, President Obama was participating in a previously scheduled national town hall meeting on police-community relations, which had been organized by ABC News and Disney Media Networks in the wake of a gunman’s deadly attack upon law enforcement in that city, a targeted assault that claimed the lives of five police officers.

The deadly attacks in Texas came on the heels of fatal high-profile officer-involved shootings of African-American men in Louisiana and Minnesota, which touched off protests in cities across the nation, including in Dallas, and re-ignited difficult national discussions about policing and the criminal justice system in the United States.

"In communities all across the country, there is real concern about making sure that interactions between police and community don’t result in death, and nobody wishes that more than police officers themselves, because when you talk to those police officers who have, whether justified or not, whatever the findings, have ended up killing somebody,” Obama said during the town hall, “it shatters them too."

As I was flipping between Nice news updates and the town hall on police-community relations, I was thinking about just how much law enforcement agencies have had to adapt to rapidly changing situations and evolving threats while having tough conversations about policing tactics and the fairness of the criminal justice system. This isn’t necessarily a new revelation, but the dynamic news events of the summer puts that in a new perspective.

With the Nice attacks, police agencies in the United States responsible for event security now have to think about ways to protect large gatherings from deranged individuals who can use a speeding car or truck as a simple but deadly weapon.

Adding to this challenging security posture is the availability of firearms in many places around the United States and the ease with which an individual can secure a deadly weapon to inflict harm, which was the case in June’s mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which killed 49 people and injured scores more.

As for the current uneasy tensions that exist between police departments and the communities they serve, there are no easy answers because so many of the ongoing public policy issues involving law enforcement are intertwined—that includes mental health, substance abuse, systemic poverty, lack of economic opportunity, racial inequality, proper police training, use of force, gun control and officer-worn body cameras, just to name a few.

In some ways, many of the challenges law enforcement agencies face are part of a “Wheel of Misery,” a term that Derek M. Young, a councilmember in Pierce County, Washington, used in a tweet in late July. Young was reacting to a news report about a county government effort to clear a homeless encampment along the Puyallup River, an action that will likely only exacerbate the situation and simply push the problem to a new location.

“Yep, the county went down there, taxpayer dollars are going to be through the roof on the whole thing … and all you did was move it,” a community outreach officer for the Puyallup Police Department had told a columnist for The News Tribune. “Because of the lack of resources.”

That “lack of resources” is something that nearly every state and local jurisdiction can identify with.

While providing social services to ease the impact of homelessness and providing stability for those without fixed residences aren’t squarely law enforcement issues, law enforcement certainly plays a role in responding when trouble arises. In many ways, there are multiple policy issues that get caught in multiple wheels of misery spinning at the same time in local communities, forcing law enforcement to react and adapt to constant change.

Our new Route Fifty ebook, “Of Top Concern for State and Local Law Enforcement,” looks at a variety of the issues police agencies are dealing with, from preparedness and response, event security and officer safety to the implementation of new policing technology, among others.

The challenges are immense. The threats and dangers are real. And the solutions are not simple. Hopefully, our communities can escape some of those difficult “Wheels of Misery.” If not, police agencies will be dealing with the inevitable fallout for the foreseeable future.

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