The West District of the Miami-Dade Police Department may be one of the biggest
geographically. It may be the most populated. It may have the second highest number of calls for police service.
But it is also the most understaffed when it comes to patrol officers.
That’s what Commissioner Juan Zapata says after he rode along with officers on Thanksgiving and did an analysis of the staffing per district.
The rapid population growth in the southwest part of Miami-Dade — otherwise known as West Kendall and South Dade — has outpaced the number of officers assigned to the area. The West District (formerly the Hammocks District) is by far the largest, serving a population of 329,656, according to Zapata’s office. Those lucky residents have one officer for every 1,852 them to share — a ratio that is the highest in the county.
The next largest district, which has about half of that population at 165,393 and had only about 3,200 more calls for service in 2014 than West District, has one officer for every 1,102 residents.
The Northside district, which has about 1,000 fewer calls and less than a third of the population than the 
West District, has four times as many officers per capita, with 487.
“The West District has been ignored,” Zapata told Ladra Wednesday. “The anecdotal information was there, but now we have real numbers that show the inequity. This data took a long time to get and the numbers don’t paint a pretty picture.”
Zapata has long been telling county administrators that West End taxpayers do not get the same bang for their buck. He has worried out loud that his constituents are donor constituents to the rest of the county.
“The MAC study shows how the area contributes $9 million more than it gets in services and this is the main reason,” Zap said Wednesday. “I have been asking the police director and mayor for the methodology in how new police allocations are going to happen and have yet to hear anything. This shows that based on call volume, staffing rations, crime stats… all the indicators call for the West District to have a significant increase and preference in new allocations.
“The number of additional officers needed to serve the West End
is staggering,” he said. “The West District service area has the second highest call volume and the third highest number of crimes in the county.”
Of 211 budgeted positions for sworn officers in the West District, 33 are vacant. And everybody knows that there is a large number of officers in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan that will retire this coming summer, which could leave a bigger hole.
“Even if the West District added 100 new officers it would still be the most under-served district in the county. Every Miami-Dade citizen deserves the security and peace of mind that an adequately staffed police force provide, and at this time the police force serving the West End is far from adequate,” Zapata said in a statement he released Wednesday.
And he posted the mayor’s email and phone number on his Facebook page. After all, he believes the mayor is the one who failed to address the shortage while he advocated spending $1 million on the luxury of body cameras for 150 cops.
“Call.. or email him …to demand a police force that can provide the security and peace of mind that every Miami-Dade County citizen deserves,” Zapata wrote.
The shortage is already felt by people like Pablo Aguilar, a Realtor whose home near Coral Way and 142nd Avenue was burglarized last year. He and his family returned from a camping trip to find someone had broken into the house through the garage, cut the power, and stole several TVs, jewelry and electronic equipment worth somewhere around $30,000.
“I was scarred by it. My wife and kids were scarred by it,” Aguilar told Ladra. When they talked to other parents at the kids’ school, they realized it had happened to two other people who live in the neighborhood, the same exact way.
“This could have been prevented by having more police on the street,” he said.
Too bad body cameras don’t stop crime.
Juan Zapata: West End has fewest cops per capita, needs more added by Ladra on
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