It makes for really poor PR, but the substance of the situation is that they want to hire off-duty police officers for security with greater regularity than is

It makes for really poor PR, but the substance of the situation is that they want to hire off-duty police officers for security with greater regularity than is possible given the availability of off-duty officers in the Birmingham area. This is essentially the only way they can fund the additional officers that would be necessary to staff their security needs.