3 upvotes, 0 direct replies (showing 0)
View submission: St. Petersburg Police Department
There are some areas that are overpoliced in a sense, but wouldn't be if they arranged them in a more effective way. For instance, every weekend we have about 20 or more police in the area around Central between 1st and 3rd. And every first Friday of the month we hold an event (called First Friday) where it is upped to about 30. I drive Uber in the area and have to be extremely cautious when driving through because there are an EXTREME amount of stupid drunks who walk out into moving traffic when they do not have the right to cross. Because of this, I have witnessed multiple people get hit over the past 4 years. And despite there being 20 to 30 cops, or even more, NOT A SINGLE ONE watches the crosswalks. This has even resulted in some deaths, but nothing is done. I understand the need for police there and am grateful for their presence, but it needs to be an effective presence, and it is not. With other events, such as those at Tropicana field, they have a far FAR more effective presence with crossing guards, overall security, and response (although their response is great everywhere). After these events things are more effectively coordinated and safe.
Speaking of their response and timing, in my experience this is amazing, except in one possible area. Being an Uber driver and driving around a lot, I see a lot of shit. In my years I have seen several drunk drivers, fights, people on drugs endangering themselves (more on this in a minute), thefts, and other odd things. I probably have had to call the police about once every two months. For instance, I once had to call for help on a homeless man who was clearly on something and was dancing and flailing around on the sidewalk and then unfortunately trying to jump into traffic to hurt himself. I and several other drivers nearly hit him as he was continuously throwing himself into traffic. I immediately called and within about 1.5 minutes or less 2 squad cars arrived and helped calm the man down and got him help. They were also comforting the man as he was quite distressed. The only area i think they could be better, is for when I have had to call in for a drunk driver. So far, I have never had an officer find me and stop these drivers, and they were all CLEARLY drunk. Just recently I had to call on someone who was swerving across multiple lanes, nearly hit 3 cars and a few concrete dividers. I followed them at a safe distance while giving directions for where they were for about 7 or 8 minutes before they ran 3 red lights and I lost them. However, this intially began on the highway which I believe is up to state police, until they got onto ST Pete roads.
Outside of these cases, I don't really have much experience and so I cannot say how they are. However, I have not heard anything bad other than someone bashing for more political or ideological reasons.
There's nothing here!