Alexandria Police Chief Don Hayes shared new numbers on Friday about the staffing shortage his department is currently dealing with.
"We had at least five leave within the past week. One went to another agency. One retired. Two are getting out of the profession all together," the chief said. "A lot of of officers are leaving because they want to try something different."
Right now, APD's authorized force is 311 sworn officers. As of May 1, Hayes says they're down 20 officers. Plus, he says another 48 officers are currently on FMLA or restricted duty.
"So actually out of 311, we only have 243 officers available to put on the street and go to calls for service," he said.
The chief held a news conference on Friday morning to explain the service changes his department is now making as it copes with a reduction in manpower on the force.
"We are not reducing our calls for service," he said. "We are going to respond to every call for service, sometimes just differently. We are modifying the way we do that."
APD said some of those modifications include:
- Not responding to certain calls that may fall under another agency’s role unless the agency requests support
- Not responding to scenes that occurred earlier in which there is no danger to the public, no identifying suspects, or valuable investigative leads
"So what we did, we looked to identify non-emergency calls for service that other entities of the city can respond to. We've also worked to identify non-emergency calls that really don't require an in-person response," Hayes said.
A case of suspected credit card fraud, for instance, could now involve an officer taking a report by phone.
