Police Chief Eric Clifford fears the city could again become addled by gangs, drugs and double-digit homicides if the department is forced to lay off about 40 cops because of a deepening fiscal crisis brought on by the coronavirus.
“Quite frankly, we go to the bare bones minimum of what we do – protect life and property – and we have to start scaling back on what we do as a department,” he said. “What I see is that the long-term effect is that we might start seeing a rise in gangs, a rise in the dealing of drugs, a rise in crime, and that’s unfortunate because we put in a lot of good work over the last seven to 10 years stamping that down.” Fire Chief Ray Senecal could find himself down about 33 firefighter/paramedics as well, which he recently said would make the already dangerous job of battling blazes even more perilous and hamper the department's ability to carry out other critical potentially life saving duties.