Back in 2019, Wagner said one of the first things he wanted to work on was hiring.
His goal? 155 total officers. We re not close to that right now, he says. People are not signing up to be police officers. You can t go and get something that s not there.
Back in July 2018, the department had 106 officers.
In August 2019, shortly after Wagner officially took over, they had around 115 officers. The city budget allowed for 120.
In September 2020, they had 125.
At the beginning of 2021, Wagner says they had 117 sworn officers, with around eight in various points in the training process. You gotta get them through the state course before you can get them here as a trainee. You re looking at a year before you can make any kind of difference getting somebody on the road.