Pittsburgh police say they will no longer respond to calls that are not ... trends now
The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has made major changes to its operation as it battles staffing shortages - including no longer responding to 'in-progress emergencies' and limiting the number of officers on the night shift.
Police Chief Larry Scirotto announced in February that during the earlier morning hours there will be fewer officers on staff and lower priority calls will get sent to a telephone reporting unit rather than a person.
The chief said the changes need to be made so his 740 officers can more efficiently serve the community, reported WTAE.
According to WPXI, calls for theft, harassment, criminal mischief and burglary alarms will all be handled by the telephone reporting unit.
'When there is an event that is not in-progress, we're going to take an reroute that call to our telephone reporting unit,' said Scirotto.
Police Chief Larry Scirotto said there will be less officers on staff in the early mornings and lower priority calls will get sent to a telephone reporting unit rather than a person
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The chief said the changes need to be made so his 740 officers can more efficiently serve the community
He said the early morning hours is when there are the lowest amounts of calls and from from 3 to 7 a.m. police stations will not have an officer at the desk.
'Data said that from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m that we had 8% of our call volume, yet we had 33% of our personnel working during those periods of time,' Scirotto said.
Now those early morning shifts will have a range of 25 to 63 officers scheduled.
Burglar alarms will require a second confirmation before an officer responds, because Scirotto said in a
