Well, being a criminal in Smithfield, North Carolina may have some advantages due to the fact that the city can barely fill their tanks. And the
little funding that they do have put aside runs out in February.
Disclaimer: Being a criminal is bad and in no way whatsoever should you try and take advantage of the lack of gas.
Cops in Smithfield aren’t going to answer 911 calls from hotels; they say those are
usually hang-ups. And robbery reports? False alarms, mostly. Actually, misdemeanors altogether are going to be ignored — all until the city gives
gas money to the PD.
The Smithfield, North Carolina town council nixed funding for patrol car fuel this year by 14 percent, or around $10,000 from the previous fiscal
year. Police Chief Michael Scott says that that is only enough to keep the vehicles on the road until around February, at which point he is prepared
to enforce some drastic new moves that would keep the department from going under — but will also leave a lot of the city’s exposed to crime that
cops won’t even bother to investigate.
I am not a genius when it comes to American finances. I imagine that the cities usually need to come up with these funds. It's obvious that all these
bail outs are not going towards the people who need it. The money is going to off shore corporations. Pretty sickening when Americans can't police
themselves because there isn't enough money. But they have money to fund around ten wars.
Pretty much, some criminals will have free reign on some of their activities because there is a good chance the cops won't be able to come stop
them.
Scott has asked the town council to let him use the $30,000 the city allotted for office supplies and equipment repair so that he can keep the
small fleet of patrol cars fueled through 2012. If they aren’t willing to budge, however, he says that the local law enforcement will be forced to
ignore 911 reports and not bother with incidents that might not necessarily warrant police intervention.
Imagine calling 911 but not getting help because they spent the money on ink cartridges and paper clips instead
To the town council today, Scott is expected to announce his own plan for pinching pennies within the department. The Johnston County council
refused to shift the $30,000 from one budget to another, so in response Scott is suggesting that cops avoid 911 calls from hotels and payphones, "as
a very high percentage of these calls are errors in dialing,” he tells the News and Observer. Since burglaries are also often false alarms, the
Smithfield PD will stop responding to those as well. Additionally, he is proposing that cops completely avoid the city’s western and southern ends,
since the crimes that do occur there are rarely violent.
This article is even telling which part of town to commit your crimes in. Talk about ridiculous. I sure hope that nothing serious happens there
because if some old lady gets mugged or worse these bozos won't even respond.
This is another obvious sign that the system is broken. I can't blame any one person or organization. It's the whole system. It's a complete
farce.
I recommend everyone that lives in this area to get some really good locks and some protection since the Police cannot help.
The people who live in these non police service areas should have their taxes reduced if you ask me.
