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SAN DIEGO — The exodus of San Diego police officers hasn’t been this extreme since wages and benefits were slashed back in 2009.
After losing 240 officers just this last year, city officials have now raised pay by 10%. A full roster of officers is roughly 2,100 sworn officers ready to serve, but the police union says there are only 1,800 officers currently on staff.
“A lot of them are just people who are quitting, leaving other police departments or leaving the profession in general,” said Sgt. Jared Wilson, the president of the police union.
Complaints of old equipment rising violence and lenient jail sentences for repeat criminals are frustrating officers, according to union officials.
“We lost a full-time boat team. We lost our horse mounted patrols in Balboa Park. We lost our DUI squads. We lost bicycle squads that did community policing in North Park and Hillcrest. They’ve all been cut. We’ve never replaced them. And so when we go to cut things now, we’re really cut in from bare bones,” Wilson said.
Currently, response times have also been ticking up.
“High priority calls like burglaries in progress, gunshots being fired, felony crimes in progress, violent crimes in progress. You’re looking at a 34-minute response time for priority one calls, which means we’re really not getting there time to effect change,” Wilson said.
FOX 5 reached out to the mayor’s office city council members and the San Diego Police Department, but none were available for comment.
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