Savannah Metro Police’s Mounted Patrol Unit Possibly on Chopping Block

The task is to cut about two million dollars from the City of Savannah’s Public Safety Budget.
The city’s already created a team to look at possible savings.
One of the items they’re suggesting…. the Police Department’s Mounted Patrol Unit.
While an official recommendation to cut the twenty year old unit hasn’t been made… News Three has learned it’s at the bottom of a very long list of priorities.
Community Reporter Alice Massimi spoke with the city and the head of the Mounted Patrol Unit to find out what this could mean for the city’s safety.
Red and Bobby are two of Savannah’s cutest officers… but they could soon be out of a job.
The city needs to make some cuts and these furry friends may be it.
SGT Gene Lawhorn, the Mounted Patrol Unit Commander says it would be a mistake, because during big events, these four legged officers make a difference.
“We can get around in places that the vehicles can’t get in,” he explains. “We can see over the top, a lot of officers cant. In a crowd control situation one horse can take the place of about 10 officers.”
As for the rest of the year… Lawhorn says they patrol like any other officer.
“We write reports, we write traffic citations, and we do field interviews. We do everything that a beat officer does its just we do it from horseback, that is the only difference,” says Lawhorn. 
Yet the city is wondering whether the horseback officers would better serve the community patrolling in cars.
“While other cities are talking about how many police officers to layoff, how many fire stations to close we are at an area where we are talking about what’s our most effective use of our existing resources,” explains Chris Morrill, a Savannah City Assistant Manager.
The city says getting rid of mounted patrol would save about one hundred thousand dollars…money spent annually on the horses’ upkeep.
“We have seen major priorities and we are looking at every service we provide and ranking those. We have to say we can’t afford to do everything. We have to cut about 15 million, if we don’t want to raise taxes,” says Morrill.
A sign that some tough decisions are in the city’s future.
“Its going to be a heartbreaker for a lot of people,” says Lawhorn who has been with the unit since it began. 
Whether the Mounted Patrol will remain will be decided in December when the city council passes the budget.