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EAST LIVERPOOL – With the climate surrounding police officers such as it is right now, city officials have decided to pull the local officer from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to add more manpower to the street.
On Monday morning, just before city police officers headed out to assist the DEA, county Drug Task Force and other agencies in executing drug-related search warrants at several locations, Service-Safety Director Brian Allen broke the news to the agencies that he was pulling the department’s officer from the DEA as of Aug. 1.
“We agreed late Friday to do this and I notified the DEA today,” Allen said, adding, “With what’s going on in the world, I put certain requirements on the chief in regard to officer safety and he came back with this plan, either removing (the DEA officer) or hiring additional officers.”
Saying the city cannot afford to hire additional officers, Allen said the new plan is to have two officers respond to every call for their safety.
“I know that won’t happen every time, but I can’t sleep at night knowing there’s only one patrolman on duty sometimes,” Allen admitted.
The recent rehiring of former officer Kevin Thompson as a patrolman will ease the situation somewhat since he will be replacing officer Greg Faulkner who retired earlier in the year, but with vacations, manpower is still a problem, according to Allen.
He said the DEA officer will be available to help close out the on-going investigation that led Monday to search warrants at several homes, but as of Aug. 1 he will be back on the street.
“It’s not something we want to do, but we’ve looked at every other option. It comes down to manpower and money,” Allen said. “The guys need a break. Being a police officer is not a 9-to-5 job. It’s 24/7. We’ve had several shooting calls in the past few months which played a part in this decision. Officer safety is our number one priority.”
The officer who serves on the county drug task force will remain there since that is a part-time position, spending the rest of his time in the city.
“We feel we need some contact with the outside agencies,” Allen emphasized, noting the DEA officer works full time at that agency and none in the city.
“We will continue to be proactive in the drug community with the drug task force and hope to one day be with the DEA again,” Allen said.
Asked about the status of earlier plans to seek a COPS grant to hire officers, Allen referred questions to Mayor Ryan Stovall, who said city council’s finance committee and auditor indicated to him they would not support the move, so he did not make the application.
COPS grants traditionally last for three years, after which a city must come up with the money to continue paying the officers hired under the grant program.
“Finances are pretty scary here in the city, but they are only going to get worse if we don’t have adequate safety forces,” Allen predicted.