ST. LOUIS — Police departments across the country are dealing with staffing shortages, and the St. Louis region is no different.
Officials in both the St. Louis and St. Louis County police departments say they need more officers.
From rookie police officers to the top-ranked, they say it's all about one thing: the people they take an oath to serve and protect.
St. Louis County Police Division of Patrol Lieutenant Colonel James Schneider said his father’s career in law enforcement and desire to help led him to the job.
“It always comes back to just helping people,” Schneider said.
For new recruits, the reason isn’t much different, even though the job might look different these days. St. Louis Police Officer Devon Colmone graduated from the police academy earlier this summer and said the community state post-pandemic drove him to pursue a career in law enforcement.
“I wanted to be a change in the community that I wanted to see from policing,” Colmone said.
But fewer and fewer people are choosing to put on the badge.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Tracy said he believes in this profession.
“I started over 41 years ago, working in the Bronx in the NYPD. It's been a noble profession. But, there's been a narrative out there that police officers aren't out to do the right thing. And then a lot of us have taken somewhat of that responsibility of a small percentage of police officers. And therefore that narrative has driven people not to stay in this profession or continue not to come into it,” Tracy said.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department is budgeted to have 1,220 officers on staff; right now they only have 894, and 14 of them are in the academy graduating in November.
“The officers just got a $12,000 raise, a historic raise from the mayor of this city to make us competitive that helps us bring more officers and keeps officers,” Tracy said.
Tracy said they've had to be persistent with recruitment.
“We have about 124 applicants that we're putting through a process right now. Hopefully, we can get a lot of them in. The vetting process is very difficult, because you want your police officers to be vetted very carefully, because they have such an enormous responsibility,” Tracy added.
Many departments face different challenges when it comes to staffing as coverage areas and responsibilities vary in size and needs.
Their next-door neighbors at the St. Louis county police department are budgeted to have 955 officers. Right now, they have 825.
“We're still providing excellent service, our officers are still out there answering the calls, getting there quickly and operating professionally,” Schneider said.
5 On Your Side’s Laura Barczewski asked Schneider, “When you're not at full strength, how does that affect the officers and detectives in the field?”
Schenider responded, “Well, it's going to affect them in a couple of different ways. One, they work a little longer. So they may be taking on extra shifts, volunteering for extra assignments. So the things that kind of suffer are the special events when more personnel is needed, they're hiring officers from maybe outside of the county to work at these special events,” Schneider said.
Detective Jamie Partee said St. Louis County police use several tools to recruit new officers , including higher salaries, opportunities to move up in a timely manner, specialty areas, college tuition reimbursement and one of the most important: leading by example.
Partee said when she was in school, the best example came from her school resource officer.
“I saw through my school resource officer, there was an impact that an officer could make on our youth, that would send them on a correct path or at least on a straighter line. And I wanted to be able to make that same impact on today's youth,” Partee said.
She said coming from a big family with parents who had a lot of kids to keep track of, she could always count on him to be there when they couldn’t be.
“I grew up in a family of five kids and then two cousins that lived with us. My parents didn't get to come to sporting events. But I could count on that guy to be at every game. He came to every game and he cheered for me like I was his own kid,” Partee said.
For more information on joining the St. Louis County Police Department, click here.
For more information about joining the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, click here.