PINE BLUFF -- Among the hum of side conversations that filled the university gymnasium, recruiters in full uniform stood in front of a blue display panel decorated with an oversized Little Rock police badge.
They offered a smile, paper handouts and information on how to become a Little Rock police officer. But they weren't the only police agency represented at this career fair.
Recruiters from the Dallas Police Department had their own booth. So did the local Pine Bluff force. And placed near the side of the gymnasium, North Little Rock police had a recruitment table as well.
"There's big-time competition [for recruits]," Little Rock officer Ira Whitfield said as young people filtered through the rows of booths at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff last week.
Faced with dozens of persistent officer vacancies, Little Rock police have taken steps this year to revamp their hiring and recruitment efforts. Even as the city moves to bolster its online recruiting efforts, officials say they still see the worth of an in-person recruitment event.
Little Rock officers have attended dozens of career fairs and recruiting events this year, and have plans to visit at least another three in coming weeks. The recruitment events attended this year include visits to local high schools and universities across the state.
Sgt. Van Thomas, who works in the department's Training Division, said some candidates simply prefer talking one-on-one with a recruiter instead of emailing back and forth.
"We have to realize that some people are not necessarily Web savvy," he said.
Other departments vying for qualified recruits also see the value of an in-person event, especially the Dallas police, Whitfield said.
"Dallas is everywhere," he said.
At the Pine Bluff career fair, Dallas police recruiters manned their own booth and provided handouts advertising a starting salary from $49,207 to $52,807.
"We go all over," said Dallas officer Wendell Peters, adding that he woke up in the early morning hours to make the trip to the Arkansas delta. Peters said that, days after the career fair in Pine Bluff, he would visit Florida universities on a recruiting trip.
Peters said his sole responsibility is to recruit for the Texas city's police department.
Little Rock's Whitfield, meanwhile, said he conducts background checks in addition to attending recruiting events.
Earlier this year, Little Rock tweaked its disqualification standards for police recruits and adjusted its hiring process, a move officials say will help retain a larger number of qualified recruits.
The city also has plans for a regional multimedia marketing campaign expected to feature advertisements on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Officials also plan to create an independent police recruitment website that would likely display job announcements, testimonials from officers and summaries of the hiring process, Thomas said.
"We're definitely still fishing in the same pond [for applicants]," he said, adding that the agency has tough competition as it tries to fill scores of officer vacancies.
The department, which is authorized for 590 officers, recorded 77 sworn-officer vacancies as of Sept. 13. The city has hired 26 police recruits, but they are not on patrol and have not yet graduated from the training academy, according to the data.
As of Sept. 13, department data shows there are 63 sworn police vacancies in the agency's three patrol divisions. Officials say the vacancies have weakened community policing efforts and have caused specialized positions to go unfilled.
Little Rock police have grappled with an increase in violent crime this year, a trend highlighted by a mass shooting at a downtown nightclub in July and an uptick in the number of homicides and non-fatal shooting victims.
The city has turned to financial incentives to boost police recruitment efforts, announcing earlier this year that recruits would receive a $5,000 bonus if they buy a home in the city.
Little Rock also began offering a $5,000 hiring bonus to new police officers this year, beginning with an eight-person recruit class that graduated February.
But the extra cash wasn't enough to keep some of those recruits in the department, according to personnel records released under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
Samuel Ringgold, a former Arkansas Department of Correction officer, resigned from the Little Rock Police Department in May after three months on the job. Ringgold wrote in a resignation letter that he was either going to return to the Department of Correction or join a different police department.
Nathan Lee, whom the department said was the top recruit in the class, resigned in August after six months on the job. He wrote in a resignation letter that the "hours and rigors of a career as a police officer can be difficult on a family."
"Although I realize there are police officers within this department and across the country that operate happily with their loved ones, it is not the life I want for my wife and hopefully future children," he wrote.
Lee told the department he was going to attend law school.
Both officers were hired at a salary of $40,821, the highest salary for rookie officers in the state. Their hiring bonuses were awarded with no strings attached.
The Little Rock Fraternal Order of Police expressed concern over such a scenario when the hiring bonuses were announced.
Little Rock blogger Russ Racop first reported that those concerns had been realized.
A Section on 10/09/2017