The police union president, Bob Eddis, said the move reflected "incompetence in management" and called for Johnson to step down or be replaced.
"Bringing in outside help is a slap in the face to our officers," Eddis said. "The commissioner should be deploying his personnel differently."
Johnson, who had resisted calling in the state police or National Guard to back up city police, said yesterday that the initiative had been in the works for several months.
"We need them, we appreciate them, we're glad to have them," Johnson said of the troopers.
Jack Lewis, the state police spokesman, said Gov. Rendell initially proposed that the state police look at ways to help Philadelphia, and that the program came together this week with funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.
Johnson, standing with his own commanders and officials from the state police and governor's office, said the program did not signal a state police takeover or a crime emergency in the city.
"They didn't say, 'We want to come in there and start patrolling your streets,' " Johnson said. "What they basically said is, 'We want to come in there and work with you, let's work as partners.' "
Philadelphia joins 17 other municipalities in Pennsylvania, including Chester and Allentown, in using state troopers to beef up their forces in fighting street crime. New Jersey state police have been patrolling in Camden since 2002.
The move, besides putting more police on the street, comes without the financial cost the city would encounter by hiring officers or paying overtime.
Lewis said other areas covered by the state police force, which has more than 4,500 troopers, will not be affected by the local operation.
The troopers who patrol the city will do so in addition to their regular duties at Troop K on Belmont Avenue and will be paid overtime, he said.
