Philadelphia police officers will have longer patrol shifts this coming weekend in an effort to help fight the relentless gun violence in the city, the department said.
The Philadelphia Police Department said all officers assigned to patrol operations will have their tours extended by four hours Friday, Sept. 16 to Sunday, Sept. 18.
The time extension is to "provide an increase in officer availability in order to bolster the department's crime-fighting efforts," the PPD said.
"If this is going to be a common occurrence, then we’re going to have an issue with it," John McNesby, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 president, said. "If its just for this weekend, we’ll get through it. But we got to come up with better solutions rather than just holding people down and keeping them 12 hours a day."
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Police officials said the police department budgeted to have 6,380 officers. According to the latest numbers NBC10 received Tuesday, the department is down about 650 officers. That number doesn't account for the hundreds of other officers who are out on disability or other types of leave.
Nearly two dozen people were shot in Philadelphia last weekend, Philadelphia police reported, and several of them were killed.
The victims include a man killed after an argument on a SEPTA trolley platform, and another man shot and injured after he allegedly drew a handgun on a plainclothes police officer.
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Entering Friday, there were at least 387 homicides in Philadelphia this year, up 3% from the same time last year, which ended as the year with the most killings in Philadelphia’s recorded history.
There are additional resources for people or communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Further information can be found here.
