ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Mayor Tishaura Jones joined St. Louis Talks on Thursday to discuss a number of topics including the new face mask mandate in the city, her plans with police and public safety, and Circuit Attorney Kim Garnder's office.
Jones has faced a lot of criticism in her first few months in office about the exodus of officers with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD). Some say it's due to her plans to take away from funding from police.
"It's a problem happening across the country with police officers leaving the profession. We will continue to hire and train police officers as fast as we can, but we will also change our public safety response to deploy the right professionals to the right call," Jones say. "We are discovering that up to 50% of calls can be answered by someone other than police."
According to a report by Fox 2, 92 officers have left SLMPD this year – that's how many left the department in all of 2019 and 95 officers left last year.
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Jones was asked to respond to those who say she doesn't support police.
"We have over 1,200 men and women officers employed by the city and they have a daunting task. I definitely respect the work they do," Jones says. "However, the work that we are doing to transform public safety will help officers in the long run by freeing up their time to focus on the work they were trained to do in the academy by deploying the right professional to the right calls."
She says being a police officer is one of "the most rewarding jobs" you can have to serve your community.
You can hear the full interview with Jones at the top of this page.
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