Huntersville police chief details crime trends, staffing shortfalls and recruitment push
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Summary
Chief Barry Graham told the board Huntersville’s five‑year UCR trend is steady despite a 2023 anomaly, reported 28 sworn vacancies, and outlined recruitment steps including a Huntersville‑specific BLET partnership with CPCC and requests for two supervisory roles to improve oversight.
Chief Barry Graham told the Huntersville Town Board he wanted to “give a clear snapshot” of the police department’s current condition, emphasizing staffing, measured crime trends and investments needed to keep pace with growth.
Graham said the department uses a five‑year view of Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data to avoid reacting to single‑year spikes; he described 2023 as an anomaly that appears to be the result of isolated incidents rather than a sustained trend. He said some part‑2 categories showed upticks driven by single offenders and one high‑profile case at a local business, underscoring why staff focus on multi‑year patterns rather than year‑to‑year fluctuations.
On staffing, Graham reported 28 current sworn vacancies and said recruiting has begun to stabilize: seven cadets are scheduled to start Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) on Feb. 16, two lateral officers are expected to start by mid‑February and conditional offers are out for four civilian crash investigators. He described open‑house recruitment events, expanded college outreach and a new arrangement being pursued with Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) to host a Huntersville‑specific rookie school for cohorts of about 10 trainees to speed certification and field training.
Graham urged the board to consider two supervisory additions — a captain on the command staff and an investigations lieutenant — to reduce overly broad spans of control (he said one captain currently has roughly 46 direct reports). He described that as a planning item for the coming budget rather than an immediate hire, and said filling patrol positions remains the department’s first priority before expanding school resource officer (SRO) coverage.
On response metrics, Graham said priority‑1 dispatch from the 9‑1‑1 call to assignment averages about 51 seconds, and average time from call to arrival on scene is roughly six and a half minutes. He noted a decline in citizen‑initiated 9‑1‑1 calls in part because of increased online reporting for lower‑priority incidents.
Graham also reviewed facility and technology needs: a recent space‑needs study recommended roughly 55,000 square feet to support projected staffing growth; the department currently operates about 34 Flock license‑plate reader cameras and seeks to add about 10 more; and leadership is evaluating drone deployments as a future capability but flagged high cost and operational/dispatch challenges.
Graham closed the presentation with an update on a regional magistrate request (North Mac) coordinated with neighboring towns. He said the town sent a multi‑page packet to the chief district court judge and had received no substantive response, and he encouraged community outreach to local representatives as a next step. Slides from the presentation will be posted publicly for reference and Graham said several items will be refined during the upcoming budget process.
What’s next: staff will post the slides with detailed stats, pursue the CPCC rookie‑school pilot if the minimum cohort commits, and return to the board with budget requests for proposed supervisory positions and facility planning.
