Cop here. Everything you outlined your friend does, a regular person can do.

Pension does not = comfortable retirement, and 100k a year doesn't mean dick in a lot of areas, and might mean squat if he's the bread winner of the household. Some pension systems aren't good unless you invest a lot of salary and years in to it, and I doubt very seriously he was pulling in a decent pension after only 20 years. "They don't mind double dipping" is really what any normal American nowadays has to do after they retire or leave a job after 40 years, because the fact of the matter is that MOST people just simply cannot "retire" when they retire. Millions of people just go right back to work after they leave a job.

Also, there are plenty of credit unions for just about anything you can imagine, so police credit unions aren't just police things. Surprise that there are support groups for organizations that are exactly the same as gasp regular people?! Oh, dear! And they have the same benefits as other credit unions you could easily join?! You don't say! I mean, might as well call those credit unions for county dwelling folks, or healthcare worker credit unions, or armed forces credit unions the same "for them" scummy credit unions that benefit their members with low interest rates!

Anyways, it's quite a shock when someone mentions "pension" as if it's a magical wondrous concept that instantly means you're comfortable and rich beyond your wildest dreams. It isn't, buddy. There's plenty of retirement options out there that beat pension systems in to the ground and reward the retiree in far greater amounts. There's thousands of systems that reward the retiree with just as great a retirement option as a pension.