Tulsa Police Department shuffling personnel

The Tulsa Police Department is cutting back in some places and boosting manpower in others. It's all part of the shuffling they have to do to cope with a continuing shortage of officers. The good

Wednesday, May 5th 2004, 11:03 am

By: News On 6

The Tulsa Police Department is cutting back in some places and boosting manpower in others. It's all part of the shuffling they have to do to cope with a continuing shortage of officers. The good news, there will be more officers on the street.

News on 6 reporter Steve Berg says Police Chief Dave Been says the bottom line is they needed more cops on the beat. â€œThe patrol is the backbone of the police department."

Citizens we talk to agree. "Sure yeah, more policemen on the street, a lot better."

"I think it's an excellent idea. Absolutely, I think we need more policemen altogether I think."

Because of the city's budget problems, they haven't been able to train any new officers for nearly 3 years and the number of officers available for street patrol had dwindled to less than 70% of normal. "That's just not acceptable, we have to increase that." So they're going to transfer 16 detectives to street patrol.

Chief Been says he doesn't like losing detectives, but says police work starts on the street. "We absolutely have to have the officers there to take the reports and describe the investigations that the detectives have to conduct."

Police precincts will be cutting back hours too. Instead of being open round the clock, they'll be closed between 7 PM and 6 AM. Police say it's very rare that someone in trouble actually drives to the police station or comes in here on foot, but in the event that you did have an emergency after hours, this would probably not be the place to go. â€œWe don't like that, that's not good service to the citizens, but the manpower situation, and the crisis that it is today, we've got to do everything we can to meet the basic needs."

The police department is beginning to train academy classes again, but they guess it will take at least two years to get staffing levels even close to where they'd like them to be.