Buffalo, NY (WBEN) Buffalo's Police union head says there could be crime issues because of a low amount of manpower. This comes after the deputy police commissioner was spotted patrolling Chippewa Saturday night.
"I am not surprised at all that Deputy Commissioner (Craig) Macy threw himself into the fray to try and support the troops," says PBA President John Davidson. "I think it's disconcerting to some degree that we're so low on manpower that we have multiple chiefs and a deputy commissioner working details. But I appreciate that they're doing it. It would be nice if there was enough patrol officers that we could fill these details without forcing everyone to miss their family lives,."
Davidson predicts this is going to be a very trying summer in the city of Buffalo." I know that certain people think I'm just guessing and then getting right. We've been saying for months, if not a year, at this point, this was going to happen. Crime was going to spike. The two years that we experienced of historic crime lows were simply because the members of the Buffalo PBA, the police officers on the street, the detectives following up on crimes and the supervisors making sure it all goes smoothly, they were doing the work. They were doing the work in spite of bad policy. And the reality is now we're seeing that the rubber band has finally snapped. The threads have frayed. We do not have enough officers. We do not have enough supervision. We have too many retiring. We're not recruiting at this point. We are doing the best we can with what we have. So when you hear, when the citizens out there hear that every single shift is staffed, every single detail is manned, that is that is correct. It is true. However, they are not staffed and manned with officers that are completely equipped because we have so few officers that everyone is getting forced," contends Davidson.
Davidson says this past Saturday, four of the five station houses Saturday and Sunday, forced officers to just answer calls. "Forced officers to do that who are ready to go home. Instead, you are going to stay whether or not you want to. Then, on top of that, we had the Chippewa fiasco, where most of those officers were forced. And then, once it got out of hand, and like you said, there was a shooting and guns were covered and fights breaking out everywhere. Then it was kind of an all hands on deck, where officers who were working all throughout the city, volunteered or were voluntold to stay and help out. So we're running into a situation where you're not getting officers that are at their absolute best," notes Davidson.
Davidson does credit Macy for getting involved in Saturday night's policing on Chippewa. A video showed Macy appearing to shove a woman to the ground, raising concern, but Commissioner Erika Shields says body cam video clearly showed Macy was preventing the woman from re-entering an alteraction.
Cites low manpower
Cites low manpower
