Already scarce police forces put on parade patrol detail

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The Miami-Dade Police Department is already short somewhere around 350 to 600 officers, depending on who you ask. And that number rising — as rookies flee to other departments and veterans retire. About 194 officers have retired or resigned within the last few months alone.

On Monday, putting our neighborhoods at further risk, our police force will be further thinned out as no fewer than 265 officers and their 265 vehicles will be deployed to security detail for the Martin Luther King Jr. Parade.

These are not off-duty officers getting paid overtime, like I understand that other parades and events have to provide for. These are officers on payroll and taken off their beats to protect the parade-goers and participants, including the many politicians in convertible cars. They include:

• 13 narcotics officers and one narcotics sergeant
• 10 special victims officers and one sergeant
• 25 court services officers and three sergeants
• 12 officers and one sergeant from Homeland Security
• 5 detectives from the economic crimes bureau
• 5 officers and one sergeant from the warrants division
• 4 homicide detectives
• 15 officers and seven sergeants from the special patrol bureau

It also means that seven officers and cars each will be taken out of the Hammocks District, the Kendall District and the South District for this assignment. Seven patrol cars will be taken out of the Intracoastal, six from the Midwest districts and five cars and patrol officers will be taken out of the Northwest District.

And those are just the 159 officers ordered to report to morning shifts. The afternoon shifts see 107 more.

In his Jan. 12 memo, Miami-Dade Police Director J.D. Patterson said that he expected 100,000 people to attend the parade. He also warned against using overtime for this assignment.

“Due to budgetary constraints, concerned district and bureau majors should use on-duty personnel only whenever operationally feasible,” Patterson wrote, underlining “on-duty personnel only” and not “whenever operationally feasible.” The majority of operations will be at traffic posts and security at he parade, he added, so officers should bring their own food and water.

Is this the best use of police resources? I’m not saying they shouldn’t have cops at the parade, but shouldn’t the organizers pay for off duty cops to provide security? Is it just easier to take the cops assigned to the homeowners who have, indeed, paid for their services that day?

And are we, the rest of us in parts of the county far from the parade, at greater risk Monday?

One of the district patrol officers assigned to the detail told Ladra that investigations and training have been put on hold for the parade.

“We are so short in some areas and this is depleting us further,” said PBA President John Rivera, who said that the union had recently won a motion against the city for switching shifts on officers, which is against the negotiated contract.

“We already have areas that have poor coverage. This is only making a bad situation worse,” Rivera told Ladra,.

Why do we need 266 county police officers at an event where organizers should have paid for security? And how much is this going to cost?

  Miami-Dade Police, PBA