But not all cities are scaling back. In Los Angeles, despite a city budget shortfall of $400 million, the Police Department plans to add 1,000 new officers, pushing the agency to unprecedented staffing levels. Police Chief William Bratton has made a case that spending on his department returns financial dividends to the city, The Wall Street Journal reported.
And in Oakland, Calif., the police chief recently lifted restrictions on overtime for the holiday season after scaling back because of budget woes.
In Baltimore, the department has broken up several specialized units to help reduce overtime spending, which is often used by districts to fill shift vacancies. The Baltimore Sun reported in October that the marine unit, created in 1860 to patrol the waters of the harbor, and the police community services and public housing units would be disbanded.
Cherry said that while there is no direct correlation between the cutbacks and the November surge in homicides, he does not believe that it was mere coincidence.
In the Southwestern District, he said, officers have complained to him that shifts have recently been short of personnel. An officer is required to stand guard outside the mayor's home 24 hours a day; a two-man "gun car" is routinely deployed to search for armed suspects; two officers are assigned to a detail where the Southwestern, Western and Southern districts converge; and another is on desk duty. That sometimes leaves only eight cars to respond to emergency calls.
At a community meeting in October, Dixon called the Southwestern District where she lives "the worst."
Bealefeld said the presence of more police cannot stop much of the city's crime, a point also made recently by the mayor.
"With all the overtime in the world, I wouldn't have had a man on the Walgreen's parking lot or a man on Gwynns Falls Parkway at 4 in the morning when a group of thugs tried to take the man's wallet and shot him in the face," Bealefeld said.
Statistics provided by the department show that while homicides spiked in November, other crimes across the city fell, in some cases considerably. The 28-day period ending Nov. 29, the most recent for which statistics are available, showed double-digit percentage drops in nonfatal shootings and robberies over the previous four weeks, as well as declines in aggravated assaults and burglaries.
