Pittsburgh, PA is the 20th largest metropolitan area in the country. Last week, Pittsburgh PD announced it will stop sending officers to certain emergency calls from 3am – 7am, redirecting them instead to a “telephone unit” to allocate to officers when they show up at 7am rather than having an officer show up on the scene in real time.
Chief Larry Scirotto wants to cut their call volume from approximately 200,000 calls per year down to about 50,000. This essentially means that calls for criminal mischief, theft, harassment and burglary alarms, just to name a few, will all be handled by the telephone reporting unit or online reporting.
Instead, calls will be directed to a telephone recording unit, where reports can be filed over the phone, according to WPXI Channel 11. Additionally, from 3 am to 7 am, the city’s six police stations will operate without desk officers present. During these hours, only about 20 officers will be available for overnight shifts to cover the entire city. Call boxes linked to 911 will be available for emergencies during this time.
Officers are also now being scheduled to a 10-hour work day, four days a week with time allocated for “mental health”.
Morale is low, recruitment is down. Lasy year, Mayor Ed Gainey’s proposed 2024 budget caused quite a stir among Pittsburgh police officers when it reduced the number of budgeted officers from 900 to 849. Defunding the police means only one thing. A field day for criminals.
Pittsburgh PD will stop sending officers to certain emergency calls from 3am – 7am, redirecting them to a "telephone unit":
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 10, 2024
"Those calls will be queued up for the person that comes in at 7am to take the reports in the morning."
Everything is fine! pic.twitter.com/VVvlp1f2dl