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Blue cities that lost historic numbers of police officers beginning in 2020 have yet to recover due to far-left, anti-police policies, a top leader of the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) said.
“Police officers aren’t stupid,” Joe Gamaldi, the FOP’s vice president, told Fox News Digital. “They realize that their far-left city councils and mayors will throw them under the bus at any opportunity.”
He referenced several cities where staffing numbers have fallen “off a cliff” since 2020, including Chicago, New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Riot police officers scuffle with demonstrators during the rally “March on the DNC” on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., Aug. 19, 2024. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
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President Donald Trump earlier this month federalized the capital’s police force and has hinted at takeovers in other cities in an effort to combat violent crime, a move which Gamaldi supports.
When asked Tuesday if blue city leaders will pay at the ballot box for being weak on crime, Trump answered affirmatively.
“I think so. I think that crime is going to be a big thing, and we are the party, the Republicans are the party that wants to stop crime,” he said. “We’re against crime. The Democrats like crime. I don’t know why. I mean, we talk about common sense. I think I got elected on talking about common sense.”
Gamaldi slammed those who oppose Trump’s crime crackdown.
“It is absolute lunacy to me that there are people actually pushing back on making our communities safer. I mean, we have D.C. who hasn’t had a homicide in 11 days,” he said Monday. “We haven’t seen that in generations. We should be celebrating this. This is a huge victory.”
Gamaldi said the new federal policy allows for “proactive policing,” which was used in the 2000s in major cities to cut crime in what he called an “urban renaissance.”
Metro Transit Police and Homeland Security Investigations officers search the vehicle of a person detained for a driver’s license issue in Washington, D.C., U.S., Aug. 13, 2025. (REUTERS/Ken Cedeno)
“Any police officer worth their salt knows that only about 5% of the community are bad people that are committing crimes, and if you lock them up, crime will go down,” he said. “Washington, D.C. right now is the perfect example.”
In large cities, though, officials are largely hindering their own police forces and driving cops away, according to Gamaldi.
“If you were working for a company where you followed policy, training, the law and did your job exactly how they expected you to do it, but it didn’t turn out the outcome that they exactly wanted, and then they indict you, fire you and vilify you in the media, why the hell would you stay?” Gamaldi asked.
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He said that is exactly what happened during the 2020 “Summer of Love” where cities and media outlets touted “mostly peaceful riots” where he said people were “burning [police] in effigy.”
“Of course, you’d be packing your bags, and that’s why we’re seeing a mass migration of police officers, because they’re actually leaving these far-left cities that don’t support them, or politicians that don’t support them, for communities that actually will,” Gamaldi said.
Statistics from major blue cities across the country bear Gamaldi’s theory out.
Riot police officers scuffle with demonstrators during the rally “March on the DNC” on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., Aug. 19, 2024. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
As of Jan. 1, 2020, Chicago had 13,156 sworn police officers, according to city data. That number has plummeted over the past four-and-a-half years, and as of July, there were 11,602 cops manning the streets. That is a drop of 1,554 officers.
Baltimore is a much smaller city, but has seen a huge reduction in its police force, too.
In 2020, the city had about 2,500 sworn officers, according to FOX 45. By the fall of last year, that number had dipped below 2,000, the city’s police union reported, a drop of 500 officers, representing 20% of the force.
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Police officers aren’t coming back, either, according to Gamaldi.
Smoke rises from a fire on a police cruiser on May 30, 2020, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file)
“And I think if you need any further evidence of just how bad the crisis got, you still have departments in California offering $100,000 to sign up, and they still can’t fill the cadet classes,” he said. “Because folks know, they’re not stupid when they apply for these police departments. They know what places are gonna support them, and the other ones that are gonna throw them under the bus.”
Los Angeles had 9,852 sworn officers in mid-2020. That number has dropped to 8,738 this year, a total loss of 1,114 cops.
In October 2019, the NYPD welcomed a 900-person recruiting class to a force that had about 36,900 officers a year earlier, according to the New York Post.
Just this month, the NYPD gained 1,093 newly sworn officers, bringing the city’s total to 34,455, the Post reported. Even with that boost, the force is still down nearly 2,500 cops from about five years ago.
Measured in terms of experience, Gamaldi said police forces have suffered unimaginable losses from which they might never recover.
Demonstrators march to protest the death of George Floyd in the South Bronx on June 4, 2020, in the Bronx borough of New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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“You’re looking at hundreds of years of law enforcement experience walking out of the door to go find other employment or retire,” he said. “Who’s going to train the next generation?”
To claw back officers, Gamaldi said police departments have lowered their training standards, which will have a ripple effect that lowers the quality of police work.
“And if you think those chickens aren’t coming home to roost, I assure you they will in a few years,” he said.