Belleville police chief Mike Callaghan made one thing clear during Tuesday’s town hall meeting at the Belleville Police Station, they need more officers.
During discussions with the public, Chief Callaghan explained some of the challenges that have faced the police department in recent years, and how they’ve increased the workload on officers.
He says that officers are expected to complete lots of paperwork after dealing with a call, so much that it can take an officer out of action for the rest of their shift in some cases. While each call demands more time from an officer, they also have seen a steep increase in the number of calls they receive, with 911 calls increasing 25% over the past two years.
“That kind of call volume is just not sustainable,” said Chief Callaghan. “At the end of the day, we need to be proactive and reactive and right now we are just completely reactive. We have a very, very finite amount of time to do those proactive initiatives.”
The shortage of officers has gotten so severe that they had to shut down their traffic unit over the summer in order to ensure proper coverage for 911 calls.
Chief Callaghan wants to recruit eight new officers over the next year in order to ensure they have staff to resume more preventative work and community engagement, rather than devoting almost their entire staff to 911 calls.
