Short staffed, here’s how many new police officers Manassas plans to hire by Feb. 1

Manassas police on Monday night swore in seven new police officers.

The new officers come as the city’s police department in recent months has been short on manpower, forcing existing officers and staff to put in extra hours to meet demand.

Manassas Police Chief Douglas Keen tells us these new officers will mean a lightening of the workload for many on the force who have been putting in extra effort.

Many of these new seven officers will also have ties to the region. Keen hopes those ties will keep them here.

He’s also not done hiring more police officers, as he tells us:

“So the Academy is just the first component of that when they come back they have to ride with a field trainer for at least four months. If everything goes perfect, 16 weeks. So that puts a lot of stress back on staff because they have to rotate through officers. So we figured adults

So once they finished the field training hopefully around April time frame they will be released on the.

We have been short staffed, that’s really putting a lot of stress on everyone.

To be honest with you I’m very proud of how the staff has responded to have stepped up worked overtime covered for each other. But getting this will give them some relief before we get into the summer and get his back up, including myself.

All the way down to the newest officer we are approved for 96 sworn officers. We’ve been running in the mid 80’s for almost two years.

We hire quality people, qualified people. But with that comes people from other agencies that pay a lot more money, they come looking for our staff.

So we’ve lost a few to other agencies simply because of that difference in pay. But the city has responded with some pay incentives and pay increases, that’s helped. And we’ve also changed our model.

Quite a few, at least 50 percent of [the new officers] have a connection to Manassas, and we’re hoping by trying to use that model will help them keep this as home and not just want to go to chase the dollar, as we say.

And we think we offer more our officers… they get to do more. If they have a grand larceny case…In your bigger agencies, that’s a report, send it to someone else. Here, if you want to work it, you can work it from start to finish and follow it all the way through.

They can be members of the bike team, the SWAT team, the civil disturbance… they can do it all here and still be on patrol as well.”

The departments plan to hire at least six more police officers ahead of the next six-month police academy that begins Feb. 1.