Police Officers Living Outside of Fort Worth

On Saturday June 30 2001 in the editorial section of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, it was published a comment about police officers living outside of the City of Fort Worth that reads as follows:

“Some Fort Worth City Council members have long complained that most of the city police officers (about 62 percent) and firefighters (about 72 percent) live outside the city. But those numbers look pretty good compared to the Los Angeles Police Department. Four out of five LA cops live outside the city of Angels, says a recent Los Angeles Daily News analysis.
The No. 1 reason: The officers feel that their families are safer in suburbia.”

Some cities, like Chicago and Saint Louis Missouri already recognized the implication of this phenomena by not allowing people that do not live in those cities to apply for the job as police officer.

The reasons are obvious: economically, in the Fort Worth case, these officers are taking better than 41 millions out of the Fort Worth tax base and spending it in other cities. Now, the fact that they move to others cities because they are concerned about the safety of their families puts a question mark in the quality of the job they are performing in Fort Worth.

It is regrettable that even the Chief of Police, moved outside of the city when paradoxically he proclaims in front of the City Council that “Fort Worth, is a safe City”

This is part of the context in which we publish the figures and other data
concerning this phenomena. It is time that we, residents of Fort Worth take
our safety and the safety of the new generations in our own hands.