All over the country, in cities big and small, police departments are recruiting tiny fractions of what they used to be able to. Cleveland's graduating class from police academy this year was 9 piglets. In 2000, they had 87. Similar drops are happening all over the country. Cities may be refusing to defund, but their PDs are shrinking anyways because the vast majority of people have realized that cops are basically evil.
They kinda do this but with recruiting from the suburbs to patrol the city.
Yes. I think that there is a lot of deputizing of regular people into roles like immigration control and with gun ownership concentrated in a class of people more than willing to use it against others, they may already cover their lost personnel.