PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Police Department said it will deploy officers on 12-hour patrol shifts this weekend — instead of the typical eight-hour shift — as the late summer surge in gun violence continues to put the city on high alert.
“PPD leadership has announced that all officers assigned to patrol operations will have their tours extended by four hours this upcoming weekend,” PPD spokesperson Officer Miguel Torres said in an email. “This extension is to provide an increase in officer availability in order to bolster the department’s crime-fighting efforts.”
At a press briefing on Wednesday, Deputy Commissioner Joel Dales attributed the mandatory overtime to an onslaught of violence last weekend, when 28 people were shot between Friday morning and Sunday night, eight of them fatally, according to police data.
