Originally Posted by kane

The town my friend works in has about 7,500 people. They have about 15 active duty officers and a few others like an evidence officer and a detective. Most of the time there are 2 of them on patrol at any given time. Sometimes during the day there will be more and sometimes they will have reserve officers riding with them. My friend has even said at times on graveyard shift the cover shift person leaves at 3am so the graveyard person is actually alone in the town until 6am when dayshift comes on.

I also know several city and county cops. Most of them are alone in their cars. It all has to do with budgets. They get budgets cut, but still have to cover the same amount of area and time so personnel and training are cut.