MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Here’s the deal.
It’s going to be 2,500 police officers in Memphis. Not 2,400. Not 2,800.
2,500 according to the chairman of the Public Safety Task Force.
Memphis City Councilman Rhonda Logan said, “At this point, with the social climate as it is, and the reimagining of public safety, we didn’t want to over commit at this point. So that was a number that (Police) Director (Mike) Rallings and the committee members agreed to.”
The task force started working five months ago. Among the things they recommend are more training at both a special course at LeMoyne-Owen College and at the Police Training Academy. They think there should be True Blue Tuesdays to encourage students to be cops. They recommend four hours a month of psychological counseling for police.
And they recommend a force of 2,500.
If you want more police, you’ve got to pay for more police. Councilman Logan thinks that can be done by shifting over money now used for overtime,
Council members know there’s a new police director coming next year. They also know somebody has to pay for the police.
Councilman Dr. Jeff Warren said, “it currently is not covered in our budget, unless all the overtime goes away. We will be dealing with this in future years, as our compliment increases, if we are successful with our recruitment and decreasing our attrition.”
