OUT OF
TOWN COPS
HUFFINGTON
12.09.12
a betrayal, officers say. But they
add that the sense of betrayal and
abandonment extends far past
Thomson, from city hall to the
governor’s mansion.
“It’s a feeling of being unappreciated by your boss, by your
mayor, by your government,” says
a long-serving officer.
‘PEOPLE ARE AFRAID’
In an interview with HuffPost,
Thomson, the Camden police chief,
did not dispute that officer morale
is abysmal. He says spirits are understandably low given the challenges facing officers, from soaring
crime on the streets to the looming
closure of the department.
“It is tough. And nobody has
it tougher than these guys on the
front lines,” he says.
But he also says the department
faces a crisis of absenteeism, a
claim the police union calls exaggerated. According to Thomson,
the department’s daily call-out
rate is 30 percent — far above the
average in other cities.
“There are some days when half
the platoon calls in sick,” Thomson says.
Redd, the Camden mayor, regularly cites the absentee rate as
a crucial reason for creating the
county metro force.
“Given the recent spike in homicides and an absentee rate of
nearly 30 percent within the Camden Police Department, I recently
announced that the city is aggressively moving towards joining the
Camden Metro Division,” Redd
said in a statement in August.
Thomson, however, says the absentee problem is primarily due
Workers
install
surveillance
cameras to
keep watch
on the city,
a new tool in
the war on
crime.