War effort may strain police force

Jen Lawson

Friday, Jan. 31, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.

Metro Police and the Nevada Highway Patrol are both short-staffed and strapped for cash, and the problems may get worse due to the Pentagon's call-up of 144,000 National Guard and Reserve troops in preparation for a possible war against Iraq.

The Highway Patrol is already 41 troopers short of its allotted staffing in Southern Nevada, and it stands to lose six more to deployment.

"It will wipe out an entire squad," Trooper Jim Olschlager, patrol spokesman, said. "It's a huge amount to us."

For some area law enforcement agencies, the activations of reserve and guard units hasn't caused problems yet. The Henderson Police Department, for example, has only had one officer called up, although another one may also wind up deploying, officials said.

But deployments are exacerbating staffing struggles for Metro Sheriff Bill Young. Young, who has complained that Metro needs 300 more officers in order to meet his goal of two officers for every 1,000 Clark County residents, has seen 23 of his Metro officers ship out for military duty.

Preliminary results from a recent Justice Department survey indicated that 44 percent of 976 law enforcement agencies throughout the nation have lost personnel to reserve or National Guard duty since the terrorist attacks, Gerard Murphy of the Police Executive Research Forum, said.

Undersheriff Doug Gillespie said he anticipates that more Metro officers will be called up.

The majority of those deployed are corrections officers stationed at the Clark County Detention Center and patrol officers, Gillespie said.

However, Gillespie pointed out that the bulk of Metro's officers happen to be assigned to those two areas: There are 1,100 officers assigned to patrol and 650 assigned to the detention center. One sergeant and one civilian employee were called up, according to personnel records.

A police cadet was recently deployed after only one week in Metro's police academy, Gillespie said.

Law enforcement officers nationwide have been getting called to active duty since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Reservists from Metro were first deployed in response to terrorist activity in October 2001, according to personnel records. Some returned to work, then were later re-deployed.

The deployment hasn't affected Metro to the degree that officers are required to work overtime, Gillespie said. To cover the vacancies, supervisors have been shifting officers and resources.

"We hold their slots for them when they're called," Gillespie said. "Anytime you lose an employee (to reserve duty), you lose a quality worker."

The Highway Patrol has also been moving troopers around to cover shifts, but unlike Metro, the department has been tapping into the overtime fund, Olschlager said. The situation is also beginning to affect morale, he said.

"You work day after day after day, and it does take its toll," he said. "Your morale goes down, your alertness goes down."