Leaving the Force

More than two dozen officers have resigned from the Mobile Police Department since the first of the year.
Twenty-Nine officers have resigned since the first of the year.
Nine of them turned in their notices last month and Police Chief Phillip Garrett says he expects more this week.
What's causing our men and women in blue to cross the thin blue line?
Chief Garrett says many of the officers are switching careers or are going to other law enforcement agencies that pay more money.
He says the department is feeling the shortage.
"You're never going to have enough police officers to do what you think you want to do. Does this burden us or challenge us? Sure. But we do, we have to sit back and regroup and have to redeploy people to the right places and sometimes we have to take people out of places we don't have the luxury of keeping them there anymore," said Mobile Police Chief Phillip Garrett.
Chief Garrett says the number of officers leaving the force is pretty high compared to this time last year.
He says there is a new recruiting class in training and hopes to replace some of the officers soon.