Post by Chuck McCue on Sept 3, 2022 9:45:57 GMT -5
From Jacksonville Beach Police Chief:
All,
We swore in two new officers in August. One officer was previously employed by JSO corrections and the other by the St. Louis Police Department. We currently have two vacant sworn positions; one candidate is ready to fill one of those positions in November, and one candidate is ready to fill the other position immediately. We are holding another one-day processing event next month with four viable candidates for possible vacancies in the near future and for part-time officer positions. Detective Ikram also managed to fill the purchasing administrative assistant’s position that has been vacant for two years. Our revamped recruiting and processing efforts have been working wonderfully, but we are still getting very few applicants for all open positions. The national trend of shortages of police officers, in my opinion, will get much worse before it gets better. Thankfully, Florida as a whole is holding it’s own for now.
We began Class 47 of the Citizen Police Academy with a class size of 28 people! Previously, I was concerned about the program’s future with post-COVID community engagement down in all community functions throughout the country. This is the largest class in 5 years, and our advertising efforts have paid off. The shameless plugs for the class from many of you promoting it have been fantastic. Please keep it up! As you are aware, this class feeds our nationally recognized volunteer program. Thanks to the efforts of everyone, our Citizens on Patrol shifts are also increasing back to pre-COVID levels.
The Police Department finalized all of its strategic goals this month to include our major back-to-school student safety campaign and our traffic safety campaign concentrating on bicycle and pedestrian safety. We received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from the campaign. We also flooded areas in and around all of our public schools, some of our private schools, and our school zones with officers and marked patrol cars. Again, we received many positive comments from citizens and the school personnel for our two-week effort.
Members of command staff attended the annual Beaches hurricane exercise, and it was a success with some 60 county and local officials in attendance.
Recently, a homicide occurred in a residential area, and the case is under investigation. Again, another major effort by our staff, and they did (and are doing) a great job. The previous homicide (from earlier in the year) is still a very active investigation....
Gene Paul N. Smith
Chief of Police
Jacksonville Beach Police Department
904-247-6343
All,
We swore in two new officers in August. One officer was previously employed by JSO corrections and the other by the St. Louis Police Department. We currently have two vacant sworn positions; one candidate is ready to fill one of those positions in November, and one candidate is ready to fill the other position immediately. We are holding another one-day processing event next month with four viable candidates for possible vacancies in the near future and for part-time officer positions. Detective Ikram also managed to fill the purchasing administrative assistant’s position that has been vacant for two years. Our revamped recruiting and processing efforts have been working wonderfully, but we are still getting very few applicants for all open positions. The national trend of shortages of police officers, in my opinion, will get much worse before it gets better. Thankfully, Florida as a whole is holding it’s own for now.
We began Class 47 of the Citizen Police Academy with a class size of 28 people! Previously, I was concerned about the program’s future with post-COVID community engagement down in all community functions throughout the country. This is the largest class in 5 years, and our advertising efforts have paid off. The shameless plugs for the class from many of you promoting it have been fantastic. Please keep it up! As you are aware, this class feeds our nationally recognized volunteer program. Thanks to the efforts of everyone, our Citizens on Patrol shifts are also increasing back to pre-COVID levels.
The Police Department finalized all of its strategic goals this month to include our major back-to-school student safety campaign and our traffic safety campaign concentrating on bicycle and pedestrian safety. We received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from the campaign. We also flooded areas in and around all of our public schools, some of our private schools, and our school zones with officers and marked patrol cars. Again, we received many positive comments from citizens and the school personnel for our two-week effort.
Members of command staff attended the annual Beaches hurricane exercise, and it was a success with some 60 county and local officials in attendance.
Recently, a homicide occurred in a residential area, and the case is under investigation. Again, another major effort by our staff, and they did (and are doing) a great job. The previous homicide (from earlier in the year) is still a very active investigation....
Gene Paul N. Smith
Chief of Police
Jacksonville Beach Police Department
904-247-6343