By ROD ZOOK
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Police Chief Jeff Hooper says the department is getting closer to being fully staffed.
“Currently, as I sit right now, I’m 11 officers short, but I have seven officers in the hiring process and so it looks pretty promising,” Hooper said. “I think the majority of them will come on board, so here in the next month or two, we’ll be back into the single digits.”
One thing the new hires mean is a much younger police force with less experience.
“It’s not without its challenge because we lose some of that experience and some people that have been here a long time,” Hooper said. “This is a challenging profession where you’re asking very young men and women to make split-second life or death decisions or they have the power to take people's freedom away by taking them into custody.”
Because of the younger force, Hooper says they are putting in training before and after the recruits do their training at KLETC.
“Before they even go to the academy, we bring them onboard three weeks in advance,” Hooper said. “They have three weeks of training here, they go off to the academy for 14 weeks of training.” Hooper says they then spend another two weeks in the classroom before going out for 16 weeks with another field training officer.
Hooper says he wants to make sure that his staff and officers are able to serve the community and not just be there for law enforcement.
CLICK HERE to download the Hutch Post mobile app.
CLICK HERE to sign up for the daily Hutch Post email news update