Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Highway Patrol to boost force in county

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Highway Patrol is going to beef up the number of troopers in Clark County.

Fifteen cadets will graduate Friday from the Department of Public Safety Training Division, and 13 will be assigned to Las Vegas.

That will help fill 30 vacancies in Clark County, Highway Patrol Chief Dave Hosmer said Wednesday.

"This will make a dent, but we need to continue on," he said.

Fewer than 20 troopers statewide have graduated from the Highway Patrol's training academy in the past three years.

Response times by troopers went up from 6 1/2 minutes four years ago to just over 11 minutes now, but at peak hours, drivers often wait for as long as 30 to 40 minutes for a trooper to respond to a crash scene or a call for service, Lt. Phil Dart said earlier this year.

The recruitment process and training academy was put on hold for about 18 months while its program was revamped, Hosmer said. He said this is the third and the largest class to graduate since training resumed about a year ago.

"This graduation ceremony marks the successful completion of perhaps the toughest academy in recent history," he said. All of the troopers had prior law enforcement experience or training.

Even though the patrol may be down 30 troopers in Clark County, Hosmer said there was no increased safety problem. If the need arose, officers from Northern Nevada could be shifted to Southern Nevada, he said.

Plans call for starting another 10-week training session in December and he hoped to have 20 cadets enrolled. But he said the patrol is finding an "abnormally high" number of people who "wash out" of the program.

The biggest reason, he said, is they can't survive the background checks. He said the patrol is getting applicants who have been rejected by other law enforcement agencies or who have been fired from them.

After the ceremony Friday with Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah Agosti, the officers will begin field training. They will be assigned with veteran officers for ride-alongs and then work their own.

The new troopers being assigned to Las Vegas are Will Thurston, Tim Case, Michael Diamond, Steven Helms, Chad Phaby, Mason Muir, Scott Scrivner, Ben Leonard, Loren Lazoff, Noah Bennett, Charles Haycox, Todd Ellithorpe and John Pentelei-Molnar.

Hosmer said the former routine at the training academy taught such things as how to march. And he said more than a week was "wasted" on administrative issues.

The Highway Patrol's academy used to be more of a traditional police academy, but it inadvertently served as a training center for local police agencies in Nevada.

The new curriculum is designed to prepare recruits for careers in the Highway Patrol rather than a career in generalized police work.

New troopers who complete the revamped academy will be able to analyze traffic problems and figure out how to solve them rather than reacting to problems when they happen.

Rather than mostly classroom instruction, the troopers now undergo "scenario based training," in which they encounter various situations.

Troopers Jacob Harp of Ely and Cody R. Eason of Battle Mountain will both be assigned to their hometowns.

The Highway Patrol recruits heavily in Northern Nevada and in the Midwest, but not as much in Southern Nevada because of the disparity between trooper and police officer salaries in the Las Vegas area.

Entry-level troopers earn about $10,000 less than other police agencies in the Las Vegas Valley. The Highway Patrol's starting salary is $33,136, while Metro pays $44,903, Henderson pays $43,385 and North Las Vegas pays $43,218.00

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