Boston police officers with batons lined up outside the District B-2 station in Roxbury before a protest on May 31. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Amid calls to defund police, Boston police officers and their advocates have urged for hundreds more cops to be hired. They say that these days they’re stretched thin, forced to work mandatory overtime and facing a more hostile public.
Nearly 300 officers in Boston are with the department, but they're not working. And the city is spending millions of dollars each year, to pay both the officer at home — who often earns a paycheck tax-free — and the overtime to another cop working to fill that staffing hole.