Texas Law Enforcement Hoping To Hire Laid Off TPD Officers

By Lori Fullbright, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- A half-dozen Texas police departments are in Tulsa, recruiting the 124 recently laid off police officers.

Some agencies have a starting salary $10,000 higher than Tulsa, but the officers The News On 6 spoke with say they would rather stay in Tulsa.

Most people on the department say it's sad to see other departments in Tulsa recruiting officers. 

It costs Tulsa $100,000 to train and outfit each officer, which is a big investment that is now going to pay off for other cities.

The recruiting fair is the last place Darin Ehrenrich and his fiancé want to be, but since he has been laid off twice in the past three months, he feels he must find a more stable place to have his career. 

Darin was a machine gunner with the First Infantry Division, on active duty with deployments to Iraq and Kosovo. He grew up in Tulsa and always wanted to live here and be a police officer.

"It's devastating. It's something you work your whole life for and it's taken away. It's nothing you did wrong, it's not disciplinary. It's just the economy is such they can't afford to pay our salaries. It's just a devastating situation," said Darin Ehrenrich, a laid off officer.

Darin took off a month from his job to get in shape for the six-month long police academy and graduated with academic honors and has only been on the job about a year. Now, he must go through that all over again if he gets hired elsewhere.

"It's hard to see someone work so hard. You think there's going to be a payoff and it's cut short. It's very disappointing for him and hard for me to see as well," said Kristen Haak, Darin's fiancé.

Kristen will have to give up her career as well, but they know it could be worse. Many officers have children or just recently purchased homes and will find it much harder to pick up and move.

Tulsa spends 17 percent of its total city budget on the police department. In Oklahoma City, it's 28 percent and in Fort Worth, it jumps to 31 percent. 

One thing Darin asked each recruiter was where they get their funding. He's looking for a city that does not depend solely on sales tax to pay police, like Tulsa does. 

Tulsa's mayor and the police union are meeting Tuesday to see if there's any deal they can reach that would rehire the officers.

2/6/2010  Related Story: Tulsa's Interim Police Chief: TPD Is Far From Sinking

2/4/2010 Related story: Some Laid Off Tulsa Officers Return To TPD - As Volunteers