San Diego P.D. Chief says department needs more money....Well Pacman, is it true?

[Terminator]

San Diego's police chief said his department needs more money and that without a bigger budget, more officers will resign and public safety could be at risk.
Chief William Lansdowne said taxpayers should be proud of his department. He said officers have helped to keep crime down without the equipment and backup help they need.
But, Lansdowne told a City Council committee his budget is not big enough to pay competitive salaries. He said his department has fewer police officers per 1,000 residents than most large U.S. cities.
The officers desperately need new vehicles, radios, bulletproof vests and other equipment, along with more office space for employees, according to the police chief.
Lansdowne said it will take two years to hire enough officers to reach budgeted levels. He warned that if salaries do not improve, more officers will leave to work in other cities or counties.
"It is heartbreaking to me as chief of police," Lansdowne said.

[PACMAN]

yes it is true...we are losing a lot of good cops to other departments up North such as Riverside and OC. I am going to sit tight and hope this blows over but for many they must go with the money to feed there families.....

[TXCharlie]

Dallas needs 700 more cops - I have a relative on the force. I've never heard of a city yet that has enough. Well, maybe a couple claim to have enough, until Murphy's Law comes into play.

Even our little town with gobs of rich people has only one or two patrols per 10,000 residents - That may have come to bite us when a domestic squabble turned murder/suicide a few days ago. The PD had a 13 minute response time, even though geographically we're rather small - Obviously, units were not in the area, or were busy at the time. They also initially thought it wasn't a serious squabble, but still their normal response is 3-5 minutes unless the beat officer is pulled out of the beat to assist in another beat (which should rarely happen - there should be extra floater patrols for that).

I guess no one will ever know whether a larger force and faster response to the wife's 911 call would have saved her life, but that kind of thing isn't obvious when you just look at our extremely low crime statistics.