ODESSA, Texas — To serve and protect.
That’s the duty of police officers.
But here in Midland and Odessa, those officers serving and protecting our citizens and city are lacking.
Day to day, Midland has about 70 officers working, 45 are spread out through the city, which the department said is the near the same amount as last year.
"45 officers which is including officers with our canine, our directed patrol and traffic. As far as the shifts we can have anywhere between 12 to 15 people working the streets per shift and we have 4 shifts," Bianca Rodriguez, MPD background investigator said.
Odessa has about 150 sworn officers working, with a majority patrolling in 4 different shifts.
In Midland they need 43 more officers. Odessa needs 26.
Less officers are needed in Odessa, where the need is actually greater now because of another recent task added to their plate: Enforcing the city business mask mandate.
"We haven’t issued any citations, but we have given several warnings," Steve LeSueur, OPD chief communications officer said.
But like everyone else, contracting or being exposed to COVID is making this list of officers on call even shorter.
"At any given time we usually have a few, multiple officers out. They’re being quarantined as a result of COVID," LeSueur said.
So how are they managing?
They’re making do and asking of overtime hours from the officers they do have.
Our police are going the extra mile for us.
And if they become fully staffed, "Then we’re able to handle cases, close cases quicker that way," Rodriguez said.
They’ll be able to serve and protect even better.