Starting pay for Detroit officers is about $14 per hour, Diaz said. “But when you factor in the pension and benefits they’re paying for, they’re bringing home roughly $8 per hour after taxes. It’s difficult to be a Detroit cop and make ends meet. You can’t blame them for leaving so they can feed their families.”
The department lost between 30 and 35 officers monthly last year, although that’s slowed to about half that, Assistant Police Chief Lashinda Stair said.
A $75 million budget cut in the 2012-13 fiscal year — which represented 18 percent of the total budget — forced the department to shed 380 officers. There have been new graduating classes from the police academy added to the ranks since then, but officials say there hasn’t been money to hire enough new cops to replace those leaving.
East side resident Ray Rutyna, 68, said squad cars are scarce in his neighborhood near Seven Mile and Hoover.
You very rarely see a marked car drive by,” he said. “They’ll come if something happens, but you don’t see them patrolling much. It’s too bad, because we need them over here.”