300!

The city of Philadelphia hit a notorious milestone the other day: 300 homicides.

The city marked its 300th homicide of the year early yesterday when a man was shot dead on North Front Street.

Police were still looking for a motive, suspect, and the identity of the victim.

Described only as Hispanic, the man was found about 3 a.m. in the 3100 block of North Front Street, on the border between the Fairhill and Kensington neighborhoods.

He was taken to Temple University Medical Center and pronounced dead at 3:11 a.m. An autopsy was scheduled for today.

We're number one! We're number one! We're number one!

Sorry, but I'm in too lousy a mood to be diplomatic. My department is in shambles. Officers are retiring at a near record pace, and we cannot - or more correctly will not - keep up with the attrition. Our police commissioner is transferring dozens upon dozens of officers from patrol - the backbone of the department - into the numerous, and in my opinion, unnecessary, special units. Our Narcotics Strike Force is comprised of close to 1,000 officers. One thousand. Our entire department is composed of about 6,000 - and the numbers for patrol division are much less. Yet the media expects us to work miracles to decrease the homicide rate.

As if that's not bad enough, the commish stands by and does nothing when the Pennsylvania State Police need to be called in to clean up MY city. Worse yet, he goes to the media and begs for "10,000 black men" to patrol our streets as well. Because, what's the difference? The PPD can't handle things anyway, right? Morale is at an all-time low, and it's only getting worse.

In the meantime, our illustrious (idiot) mayor refuses to hire enough new officers to adequately patrol this city. Apparently, it's not financially feasible. As if it were more feasible to allow the body count to increase exponentially.

The result of this tumult is simple: many police officers don't care anymore. We don't care when the thugs murder each other. We don't care when the crime rate skyrockets. We don't care when our city burns. Why should we? No one cares about us, so we're all about protecting our own.

Thirteen years ago, I took this job because I wanted to help people. I knew it was dangerous, and I knew it was thankless. Most things worth doing are. Nowadays, I am just sleepwalking through my tour. And I remember that every day is one more closer to retirement.