Oakland, Calif. (KCBS) -- The Oakland Police Department is closer to reaching its goal of putting more police officers on the streets and it’s getting help from another law enforcement agency.
The Oakland Police Department has been busy recruiting officers from all over the country, and Officer Roland Holmgren says they've got 94 new recruits heading for the police academy.
“We’d like to start in our backyard,” said Holmgren. “But I think with this aggressive recruiting campaign that we’ve been doing, we’ve been reaching out all over. I can say, some of them as far out as Detroit.”
But not all of those recruits will be getting their police officer training at the Oakland academy. Some will be heading to the Santa Clara County Justice Training Center in Morgan Hill.
Sgt. Don Morrissey says they've helped other departments before.
“We’ve helped, in the past, Los Altos Police Department, Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, Salinas Police Department, state insurance investigators, the San Francisco State University Police. But with the Oakland partnership, it’s a large group – 46 recruits. That’s a large class,” explained Morrissey.
While some of the recruits may not make it through the academy, the Oakland Police Department expects enough will graduate so that they meet their goal of having 803 officers by the end of the year.
(gma)