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Phoenix police chief says department is short about 600 officers; hiring process and class cadence changing
Summary
Interim Phoenix Police Chief Dennis Orender told Councilman Jim Wherry the department is recruiting aggressively, has increased recent academy class sizes to more than 40 and plans to shorten recruit-class cadence from eight to six weeks to boost staffing from roughly 2,500 toward a target of 3,125.
Phoenix’s interim police chief said the department is operating about 600 officers below its target and has changed hiring steps and the academy cadence to accelerate recruitment.
Dennis Orender, interim police chief of the Phoenix Police Department, told Councilman Jim Wherry that “we're sitting just below 2,500 right now, so about 600 from our … 3,125,” and that recent classes have exceeded 40 recruits. He said the department has reworked the sequence of pre-hiring steps — moving the EasyPost screening and Phoenix background-check steps — and plans to shorten the…
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