A recent announcement from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, police department is providing yet another example of the disastrous consequences of 2020’s “defund the police” movement.
According to a report by local Pittsburgh news outlet WTAE-TV, staffing shortages in the police department are forcing the Pittsburgh Police Department to reduce the number of officers on duty between the hours of 3 a.m. to 7 a.m.
Instead, as local outlet WPXI news reported, there will instead be call boxes linked to 911 installed for emergencies, since there won’t be an officer at the front desk during those hours.
Moreover, officers will no longer respond to calls that aren’t “in-progress emergencies,” seeing as some nights won’t have more than 22 officers on duty for the entire city.
Needless to say, most residents are not exactly thrilled with this new development.
For one, what defines an “in-progress” emergency? And why is that the criteria for responding to an emergency call?
Calls that will go unanswered are “theft, harassment, criminal mischief and burglary alarms,” WPXI reported.
For another, as Paul Lambert, owner of Tom’s Watch Bar, told WTAE, “Anytime you’re talking about police and shorted staffing, even as a normal citizen, it’s not a good feeling, right? So, it’s a little bit concerning.”
Indeed, bar owners like Lambert find themselves forced to hire more security on their own dime during after hours to compensate for the lack of police presence.
Will this reduced police scheduling result in more crime?
Lambert in particular worried about this new development, saying, “Summer is here. We’ll adjust [staying open longer] hours, so that’s one of the considerations of adjusting hours is when we have security and when we have officers available to us.”
Granted, not every bartender or bar owner is as concerned, but on the whole, it seems most agree with the sentiments of Councilman Anthony Coghill, who told WXPI, “When it comes to harassment and things of this nature, you better have a police officer there. That’s what the public expects. That’s what I expect out of our city.”
Considering that, in many emergencies, the victims can’t even get their hands on a phone until the perpetrators have fled, how are the ordinary citizens of Pittsburgh supposed to feel safe?
They can’t — instead, you just have to pray someone else, or another police officer, just happens to see you whenever you get attacked.
Now, is this troubling new development a direct result of the defund the police movement?
Not necessarily. It does, however, run downstream from that ugly movement and its pervasive repercussions.
In the height if the defund the police movement, coming on the heels of the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after George Floyd’s death, many blue cites opted for cutting the budgets and many of the resources of their police stations, leaving them in the desperate situation we now see in Pittsburgh.
The constant attack on policing by left-wing activists is still having impacts, which, when combined with these staffing and budget deficits, leaves many cities in this same kind of bad situation.
Ideologies have practical consequences, and we’re seeing the unfortunate consequences of left-wing ideology unfolding right in front of us.
