Whitney Downard / The Meridian StarMayor Percy Bland said the police force has not been fully staffed in at least 20 years and that the police officer pay raise, approved by city council, attracted many recruits. 

Meridian will add 18 new police officers following a round of testing and examinations. City officials credit recently enacted pay increases as a main attraction for recruits.

With the addition, the department will have 94 full-time officers within the next three weeks. Four of those officers will be acquired through lateral transfers, from Alabama sheriff departments to Missouri state troopers, and 14 will be new recruits. 

For the past two years, MPD had a policy of mandatory overtime for its officers to provide adequate coverage.

“We are committed to fighting crime and having our citizens as safe as possible,” Mayor Percy Bland said, adding that Chief Benny Dubose told him that MPD has not had a full force for at least 20 years. “We are very excited about having the staff to do some of the things we want to do.”

Those things included an increased police presence in the streets and more face-to-face interactions between citizens and officers to promote trust. Bland also credited the many applications to city council’s decision to raise the hourly rate for police officers.

“If it was not for the city council giving a raise to our police officers, we would not have had (those) applications,” Bland said. 

Pay for officers with one year of experience increased from $11.81 to $15 an hour, or $24,564 to $31,200 a year. 

Bland also discussed the recent gun violence in Meridian, saying that Meridian had increased the penalties, fines and bonds associated with gun crimes. He acknowledged that many crimes are committed by youths possibly affiliated with gangs. 

“It is not against the law to be in a gang. A police chief cannot go to every house and arrest every known gang member,” Bland said, adding that the law did allow harsher punishments for those associated with a gang. “It would be an abuse of a person’s civil rights to go in and arrest a person for supposedly being in a gang.”

Instead, Bland said he asked city council, and others, to dedicate resources and funding to alternative programs and activities for youth in Meridian.

Dubose said he wanted to have a second round of hiring, possibly as soon as the end of February. The department has a maximum capacity of 110 officers and Dubose said he hoped to have a full staff by the beginning of the summer.

Dubose said he felt the cold, rainy weather on the early morning testing day had an effect on the turnout of the 70 applicants and hoped that a second round of testing would net more recruits.

“We will begin to do some of the things we want to do but have been unable to do because of manpower issues,” Dubose said. “There have been some individuals and parts of our community that have been very critical of police officers that we have and their law enforcement efforts. But you cannot expect for an individual to drive a race car in a race when they have a quarter tank of gas.”

Dubose said he hoped to increase the saturation of officers in neighborhoods and be a more proactive law agency.

As for training in the community, Dubose said he tried to make officers aware of the community makeup and stressed the importance of officers “getting out there and getting to know people.”

“They might be dealing with kids who did not eat breakfast or that may not have had the opportunities that they themselves had,” Dubose said. “We come from different environments, different backgrounds but we make up one community.”