In the long wake of national unrest toward police officers, local departments in Hall County and Gainesville are continuing to promote their job openings and fill vacant positions.
On Aug. 9. 2014, Michael Brown, 18, of Ferguson, Missouri was shot and killed by a police officer after a situation between the two escalated. The following months and years saw numerous reactionary pressure points to the shooting, as citizens around the entire United States marched, rioted, protested and prayed for variations of police reform.
Six years after the events in Ferguson, on May 25, 2020, officers responded to a call about a possible counterfeit bill being used at a corner store in Minneapolis, Minnesota. George Floyd was arrested at the scene and put on the ground, where Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd was pronounced dead at the hospital following the incident.
The murder of Floyd sparked a summer of nationwide protests and riots and prompted major concern over policing tactics and racial discrimination.
Now, over three years after the incidents in Minnesota, police departments nationwide are seeing shortages of qualified applicants, including Hall County and Gainesville.
“Just about every training that I've been to over the past year when the topic of vacancies come up, everybody is hurting,” Captain Greg Cochran with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office said. “So it doesn't seem to be isolated to one region or one area, it just seems to be a nationwide problem with shortages.”
While there may be a host of reasons departments are seeing fewer applicants, Gainesville Police Chief Jay Parrish believes a major component is the fallout from policing incidents such as the ones involving Brown and Floyd.
“I think a lot of it has to do with what we call the ‘Floyd and Ferguson Effect,’ just after those two events, we had people exit the field,” Parrish said. “I feel like our community in Gainesville, Georgia, we feel very strong support from our community. But other areas don't feel that. And then when you watch the news, and you see police officers being scrutinized for split-second decisions or where they felt like they were fighting for their life, but now they're on trial for their life, when they had just a split second to make the decision.”
Parrish noted that when someone on the outside looking in on a career in law enforcement sees that fallout, they are often led to ask why they would want to put so much of their life in jeopardy.
“I'm not saying that we shouldn't be watched and checked up on, but for somebody starting a career, unless it's just a passionate calling, they're not willing to chance it,” Parrish said.
With the general nationwide attitude toward policing taking a hit, departments are now finding new ways to get in front of prospective applicants to teach them about careers with Gainesville and Hall County.
“We have a team that is designated solely to recruiting and what that’s allowing us to do is go around to places like the University of North Georgia and all these other schools, and getting our face in front of students and enlighten them on this career,” Cochran said.
While many other careers require college degrees, trade experience or other certifications, policing is a profession that hires without those requirements. To be an officer or deputy, an applicant has to be 21 years old and hold a high school diploma or GED, according to both Parrish and Cochran. Earlier opportunities open up at 18 years old if an applicant is interested in working at the Hall County Jail.
Currently, Gainesville PD has approximately 10% of positions open, which Parrish said is a common figure seen around the state. Another issue that slows some applicants is the pipeline between applying and being in the field patrolling.
Once someone applies to Gainesville PD, it can take between 30 to 60 days to be officially hired. After that is a 16-week police academy and another 16 weeks of field training, which is all very necessary, Parrish noted.
Both Gainesville and Hall County are taking steps to speed their processes up, while still producing solid and effective officers for the communities they serve.
For Hall County specifically, applicants can get in the door much faster if they go the route of starting out as a jailer, and either remain in that role or later move on to being a deputy within the department.
Given the shortages seen in both departments, many of the existing force is having to work some level of overtime.
“Right now we're doing voluntary overtime, and it's not anything consistent,” Parrish said. “But if a shift sees a shortage coming up due to somebody in training on vacation or out sick, we are posting overtime. And at this point, it's all voluntary.”
The Hall County Sheriff’s Office is having to utilize overtime as well, as the entire department is down nearly 50 employees. The patrol division is lacking roughly 16 deputies while the jail division is down around 33. Cochran noted that those numbers fluctuate frequently, but the result remains that some in the department are having to pull a little extra weight.
“Back in the day, there were enough people with a servant's heart, people that had a true calling to do this job, to fill the positions,” Cochran said. “But you’ve got to look, the department sizes have tripled. So that demand is there because the population has increased, calls for services increased, and now you recruit people to train them to do a job, you don't have as many people called.”
A major difference seen today as opposed to decades back is the pursuit of solid applicants. Similar to military recruiting, departments are now finding a presence on school campuses, both at colleges and high schools, to encourage those interested to consider a career in law enforcement.
“It's a fun job, it's adventurous, and the rewards far outweigh some of the hard, lonely days of being a police officer,” Parrish said.
