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The Portland Police Bureau announced today that additional hires had brought the force to 800 sworn officers—and that 102 of them are currently trainees.
The bureau’s aggressive efforts to rebuild its depleted officer ranks has been impeded by a lack of available training facilities, which has slowed an already slow process. It takes 18 months for new hires to complete their training, which includes both 16 weeks at Basic Police Academy in Salem and 12 weeks at PPB’s own Advanced Academy.
It can take up to five months for trainees to even enter basic training, says Police Chief Chuck Lovell. “We’re warehousing them in the meantime,” he tells WW.
In the meantime, new recruits are assigned menial roles in the bureau, from sorting records to distributing equipment.
The Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training has run basic training for all law enforcement in Oregon out of Salem since building a new facility there in 2007. It typically runs 16 classes every two years.
In response to a “state hiring bubble,” it’s added four more, says DPSST acting directory Brian Henson. PPB has sent three officers down to Salem to help the state staff it. But it’s now at capacity, and Henson says it would be impossible to add more classes.
Lovell has suggested the state open up a regional training facility near Portland. But Henson says that’s an unlikely solution in the near term. “It’s a huge logistical task that takes so much time to do,” he says.
“We all want the same thing: We want officers trained as quickly and professionally as possible so they can get back to the communities that they were hired to serve,” he adds.
The bureau also announced the promotion of Assistant Chief Art Nakamura to lead the bureau’s Investigations Branch. He replaces Jami Resch, the city’s former police chief who relinquished the position to Lovell amid the George Floyd protests after only six months in the job. Her next gig: deputy chief of the Springfield Police Department.