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When Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop released a statement slamming the city for appointing 17 police officers as detectives, he said Mayor Jerramiah Healy was saying one thing and doing another and making the city unsafe.

Calling Healy’s State of the City address as Healy’s “State of Denial,” Fulop said, “this is more of Healy saying one thing but doing something else.”

“We heard him commit to increase police, however he doesn’t allocate money to hire any police in the budget,” he said, noting “now [the mayor is] promoting officers out of uniforms into suits. This is sad as we need more uniform officers on the streets not less.”

“The budget allocated zero dollars to added manpower,” continued Fulop, adding that the may “acknowledged” this “despite the rhetoric.”

“Also, detectives are known political appointments and there is no reason a uniform regular officer can’t take complaints like everyone else. We need more police on the street not political patronage”

But Fulop “is speaking on a topic for which he has no knowledge,” said the mayor. “The officers who are being appointed tomorrow as detective are being done so in direct response to concerns being raised by the public and will be part of a “Community Response Initiative” to address crime and quality of life concerns.”

Healy added that “contrary to Mr. Fulop’s assertions, these detectives will be in uniform, but as detectives they will have the added ability to conduct criminal investigations, take statements and thereby accelerate the criminal justice process to prevent further crimes from taking place.”

“As I said in my State of the City address and as I have stated publicly since then, my administration is working closely with the Chief of Police to hire additional officers,” the mayor added. “We are actively pursuing the hiring of officers through the Rice Bill and lateral transfers, and we have also asked the state to certify officers from the current list so that we can begin the process of sending a new class to the academy.”

However, Police Chief Thomas Comey had said at a press conference on crime prevention held by the mayor last week that using the Rice Bill hit a snag. The reemployment list, explained Comey, was out of date and might not be able to be used to hire additional police officers.