The perils of Not Defunding Police
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/cleveland-police-take-12-minutes-to-respond-to-shooting-on-quiet-sunday/
This article showed up in my Facebook feed today. I have some concerns.
I’ve always wondered about responding to calls that occur right around shift change. Are they telling us that there are no cops available at those times? Isn’t that a severe management problem? Why has that problem not been solved?
More obviously: Cleveland has been doing the exact literal opposite of defunding police.
Further, why the hell is the First District “short-staffed by almost 25 percent of their assigned patrol officers”? They have a budget that is more than they asked for. If they don’t have enough cops to fill the shifts that are in the budget that merits some investigation. What is the Commander doing with all that extra money that’s left over from not paying cops for shifts that are in the budget?
This article actually makes a compelling argument for defunding police. It’s demonstrating that the department has more money than it can figure out what to do with, and that we still don’t have adequate coverage. They’re not doing more with less, they’re doing less with more!