During its most recent recruitment drive, the Dayton Police Department received 498 applications from people who wanted to join the force. Just two applicants short of its goal. But when it came time to administer the written exam to those applicants, 144 people didn't show up. Another 125 never even scheduled the exam. We spoke with recruitment officer Tony Murphy about how the situation has prompted the Dayton PD to alter its recruiting methods.
Officer Tony Murphy: Right now, we have launched an ongoing recruitment effort for police recruit that started on August 1st. And then we also launched a lateral hiring process for existing police officers, which started on Monday, the 22nd. So, we have two applications open for police recruits, which are for anyone who has no prior law enforcement experience and just now getting into the profession of, like we say, ‘Get their feet wet.’ And then we have the lateral, which are existing police officers within the state of Ohio who has an OPOTA certification. And what that means is the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy certification.
Jerry Kenney: My experience is, in just talking to even small businesses around the area, is that they're getting people that apply and don't show up for interviews or work a couple of days and then they're gone. It's really kind of a strange set of circumstances that I think everyone may be experiencing.
Murphy: Yeah, it is. And it's not just Dayton or police departments in Ohio. It's police, it’s fire, it's engineering jobs, it's everywhere. Employers are having trouble hiring people across the nation.
Kenney: Can you talk a little bit about the challenges based on current news events, people's perceptions of the police and how the police are interacting in their communities?
Murphy: Yeah, I think that people, you know, especially, you know, especially after George Floyd incident, people are…they still have a sour taste in their mouth towards police or some sort of resentment. Something can happen halfway across the country with a handful of officers. Just in our town, Dayton, we had some riots that broke out. We're looking around like, 'What do we do?' So, I think you could do a million things right. But that one thing you do wrong, that's what you're going to be remembered of.
So, I think it's just some time and healing and more community involvement from the police side, which we have been doing here with the police department for decades, is getting involved with our community, letting people know that we are your friends. We're here to help. We're here to serve you. You pay your taxes, you pay our salaries, and we're here for you. It's kind of hard to say exactly that that is the issue, why people have a distrust for police. There could be a lot of different things for why people distrust police from their own personal experience and association with what they hear on the news and social media.
Kenney: And so, I know even before Dayton Police Department was doing some outreach into communities to diversify their force. And so, can you talk about any efforts that are still taking place in that way?
Murphy: Yeah, and in fact, I would say if you were to take a look at our calendar, you would see at least 3 to 4 different events each day that our community service division within our department attends. Now, I know I'm in recruiting, but I'm also on the community vision department. So, we all kind of work together hand in hand on recruitment and community engagement. We go out to diverse communities, which is what you see in Dayton. Those are number one things that we strive to go to and try to recruit people from within. We host Citizen Police Academy, which gives an opportunity for citizens within the community to come to our police academy, get some hands-on experience, what it's like to be a police officer for the day and get hands on why we do the things we do. And I think that kind of helps people within our community understand that, hey, when you're stopped by the police, these are the do's. these are the don't. And we also take in questions, and we talk to the community and say, 'Hey, what is it that you would like to see us do when you're approached by the police?' So it gives that open dialog so that we can help better ourselves as police officers and that the community can also better themselves for us.
Kenney: Well, all good information. Officer Tony Murphy is with the Dayton Police Force. Officer, thank you so much for your time.
Murphy: Thank you so much.
