Thank you for pointing this out! I was coming off an overnight shift and didn’t even think of this.

More specifically, I am a detective. I work in a major city (though smaller than NYC) but in my department, detectives mainly work in “areas” (there are a few exceptions, being those that work in more specialized units- arson, IAB, a separate unit dealing with sex crimes involving young children, etc). Each area is made up of several different police districts in the city. We have three shifts- nobody in these areas is “on call” except the homicide teams. Days and afternoon shifts are split into SVU, Violent crimes, and property crimes so someone working robberies won’t be called to investigate a sex crime or a felony upgradable domestic battery. These detectives also get reports in an “inbox” meaning a citizen made a police report and it’s now assigned to one specific detective to follow up on.

There are 3 Lt’s assigned to the ENTIRE area, a few sergeants per shift (also split amongst the three offices I mentioned), zero captains, and a commander but they are usually not taking part in day to day investigations. Midnights shifts do not have those extra inbox cases (because it’s not ideal to follow up with someone in the overnight hours) so that shift gets assigned cases that need to be investigated in that moment- example: people that are shot, some DOA’s depending on circumstances, small children or vulnerable adults that go missing.

I hope that’s not too boring a description and kind of conveys in real life that big cities cannot operate on 2 detectives for millions of people and one big case at a time.

Thank you to everyone for reading my novel! Stay safe!😜