Birmingham Police dealing with low staffing during spike in gun crime

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Birmingham Police announced a new initiative where officers pack the streets of high crime neighborhoods after a violent Labor Day weekend.

When addressing recent crime on September 6, Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond declined to say exactly how many officers the police department is down right now, only saying they are short. But, one former Assistant Police Chief for the department said it’s likely more than 100 officers.

“It’s no secret that they are short,” Former Birmingham Assistant Police Chief Allen Treadway said. “They were very short when I retired, less than two years ago. The numbers were down quite a bit, we are talking an excess of 100 or more officers even then.”

Treadaway said the office shortage problem is just getting worse with nationwide shortages, which puts more strain on current BPD officers.

“It means their response time is going to go up,” Treadaway said. “You have to scale back operations that you normally would not scale back, but because of staffing levels, you have to.”

Chief Scott Thurmond said officers are running 12-hour shifts to put more officers on the streets temporarily. He said when 911 calls come in, officers are sent on a priority level.

“When the calls come in, officers dispatch to the calls, and a lot of that depends on priority level of the call,” Thurmond said. “It’s just a matter of how many officers we have working that day and how quickly they are able to get there.”

Thurmond said full staff capacity would be about 900 officers, but since 2020, the city has only budgeted for 738 officers.

“We’re not going to be able to hire our way out of this situation as far as shortages are concerned,” Treadaway said. “This was a concern of mine when I was there.”

Treadaway said the city has to start recruiting officers from other cities, that way they won’t have to go through a training process, which can take months.

“We cant hire and train enough to keep up with the attrition rate, so before it gets any worse, it’s important you recruit officers in the city,” Treadaway said.

WBRC reached out to the City of Birmingham and Birmingham Police to learn more about how many officers Birmingham Police are down right now, but did not hear back.

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