Officer Mark Deasaro compares the St. Petersburg Police Department to a bucket with a large hole in the bottom. Every month, Chief Charles "Chuck" Harmon pours more officers into that bucket, and every month, just as many (or more) flow back out the bottom.
"We are losing police officers at an alarming rate," he says, looking gravely serious in the Police Benevolent Association's Clearwater office. "You can pour all sorts of new officers into the bucket, but it's never going to fill."
It's an apt analogy to describe the department, which has lost 165 officers since 2003 while hiring only 151. Police records show there are 38 vacancies in a department authorized to field 540 officers. And even that number counts dozens of police in either pre- or post-academy training who cannot patrol the city's streets alone.
The coming months don't look any better: A large pool of officers hired during an early-'80s boom period will retire in the next few years, draining the department of much-needed experience.
"You can't tell me with the number of condos going in downtown, that the infrastructure does not have to be there," says Deasaro, who represents 1,200 officers as the PBA union president. "The first thing people want is to be safe."
It's not an issue unique to St. Petersburg — thinning police forces are a problem in most growing cities across the country. But some police officers and neighborhood leaders say the difference in St. Pete lies in the way the police department is losing its younger recruits, usually after three to five years in the department.
"We don't have people coming from Tampa or leaving the [Pinellas County] Sheriff's Office to come here," Deasaro says. "We have people from St. Pete leaving to go there."
Deasaro and other police officers cite three reasons for the exodus: rising housing costs, restrictive policies like the no-chase rule and an unsupportive culture inside the department. The high turnover, he says, just adds to the plummeting morale, and further hurts crime-fighting efforts.
"No police officer is going to tell you that crime is under control," he says. "If we had all the police officers needed, we could proactively go and stop things that happen."
The police shortage might have remained an issue just between Chief Harmon and union officials, if not for the increasingly vocal neighborhood groups who say the lack of officers on the city's streets is resulting in a diminished presence in neighborhoods, emboldening criminals. For neighborhood leaders who march through the streets chanting anti-drug slogans at suspected drug houses, the lack of police support is disheartening, if not dangerous.
"The police don't have your back when they retaliate against you," says Matthew Culp, whose home was firebombed in May after 18 months of harassment by area drug dealers. "Everything we've heard is what can't be done."
Central Oak Park Neighborhood Association Past-President Dan Spice agrees.
"I think St. Pete citizens have gone well above the expected line to make sure we do our part to make the city safe," he says. "We ask the mayor and chief to do the same thing."
Sergeant Phil Quandt, who represents the local Fraternal Order of Police chapter, sympathizes with residents.
"They did everything we told them to," he says. "We understand their frustration ... it's becoming a real safety issue."
Instead of addressing the problem, he says, Chief Harmon is too busy quelling dissent in the department.
"How do you help someone if they look at you and say, 'There's no problem, there's no problem,'?" he says.
Chief Harmon refused an interview for this story, but spokesman William Profitt defended the chief's staffing levels and policies as "adequate."
Profitt says the department's authorized strength is reviewed regularly based on number of calls, response times and other hard data.
"As long as I've been here I've heard people complain, but it's not really justified," he says. "I don't think it's our policies chasing anybody away. Quite honestly, I think it's some of the officers in the department who want to complain that is influencing some of the people who come on, telling them the grass is greener."
As for the neighborhoods, Profitt gives the same refrain.
"If the neighborhoods had their way, they'd have an officer on every corner, every hour of the day," he says. "And that's simply not real. No city can do that."
Profitt says he sympathizes with the neighborhood leaders, but their perceptions run contrary to the facts: Crime is down for the second year in a row. Drug arrests are up 10 percent in the city, along with prostitution and traffic citations, three areas frequently cited by citizens.
"If I was in that situation, maybe I'd blur that reality, too," he says of the neighborhood leaders, like Culp, who feel their homes are under siege. "I'm not saying they're lying. I certainly believe in the adage, perception is reality."
But perception matters. The city may be rebounding by every economic and social indicator, and crime, overall, may be down, but those statistics might not matter if citizens don't feel safe enough to leave their homes.
"Why don't you do a poll of residents and ask if they feel safer?" Quandt suggests. "Do they feel safer in St. Pete now than they did last year?
"Because if it isn't safe, all the Sweetbays in the world is not going to change it."
