Gentlemen, start your crime sprees.

Crime is on the rise in one small Texas city because the police department has been padlocked and the officers sent home.

The city of Alto laid off its entire police force about two weeks ago because the city council completely cut the department’s budget.

Wait: no one would be so stupid as to lay off an entire police department to save a little pin money, would they?

“We had to do something drastic,” Councilman Jerry Flowers explained to Forbes. “The police department being a non-money-making entity, was the easiest to get rid of while we catch our breath and build up some cash.”

OMIGOD, SOMEONE WOULD!

The city is facing a $185,000 budget deficit due to declining property and sale[sic] tax revenues. To make matters worse, the town hasn’t saved up to make the necessary repairs to a natural gas distribution plant.

“There have been accusations that the police department is not generating enough revenue,” [Police Chief Charles] Barron said. “Well, police departments are not revenue generators.”

Eliminating the police department should certainly improve the quality of small town life, not to mention generate piles of revenue. What with the Wild West atmosphere, I bet businesses are lining up to invest in savvy Alto, Texas!

“In the last 24 hours, we’ve answered 18 calls in the county; seven of them were in Alto,” Cherokee County Sheriff James Campbell remarked. “When you’re sitting there needing help, it’s a lifetime.”

Last week, residents called law enforcement on four people allegedly attempting a bank robbery in the small town.

…Or maybe not so much and the joint’s a ghost town by this time next year. Either way: this should serve as proof that Flowers and the other councilmen have no fucking idea what they’re doing and deserve to be run out of what’s left of town on a rail.