In a city where the livability in neighborhoods is a key issue, and where filling up your gas tank can pose a danger, this is not good news.
George Hunter of the Detroit News reports that there are fewer cops patrolling the city than at any time since the 1920s.
He writes that it is a "manpower shortage that sometimes leaves precincts with only one squad car, posing what some say is a danger to cops and residents."
He goes on to write:
Detroit has lost nearly half its patrol officers since 2000; ranks have shrunk by 37 percent in the past three years, as officers retired or bolted for other police departments amid the city's bankruptcy and cuts to pay and benefits.
Left behind are 1,590 officers — the lowest since Detroit beefed up its police force to battle Prohibition bootleggers.
