By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Police Chief Jeff Hooper is concerned that covering the special events in the community like those to take place on the 4th of July makes it more difficult to do day-to-day police work in the current budget situation.
"All of last year, we worked really hard to build up that relationship with those community engagements, those community initiatives and attending those community events and really making that connection with the community," Hooper said. "We also implemented our intelligence-led policing strategy and implemented crime reduction strategies and we were successful, because we lowered our crime rate by 28%."
At the end of January, the city had lowered crime another 1.7%. After ending non-essential overtime, crime has gone up 2%. By the end of May, crime in the community is back up 4.4% and violent crime is up 8.8%.
"There are times in this city with our shortage of manpower, that we're short resources on the street, just responding to regular calls," Hooper said. "When we talk about events like this, it requires overtime to do these events. With COVID-19 hitting and our shortfalls, we obviously had to cut back on all our overtime and I was up here a few months ago committing to you that we would eliminate all non-essential overtime and we've done that. What has happened is, that means we have not been able to engage in those community events and those things that are really important, I think, for our relationship and connection with the community, but also we've not been able to engage in a lot of our crime reduction strategies."
The department is still down six officers from what Hooper would consider full strength. Eight additional officers are in training, so they're working right now 14 short.
"Crime is creeping back up," Hooper said. "I don't want to get back to where we were before, where we have a high crime rate in this city, because I think that effects a lot. It effects commerce. It effects people wanting to come here, businesses wanting to come here and that's super important to me."
The city currently has 75 officers.