From Saturday’s RomeNewswire Print Edition!
This weeks RomeNewswire print edition, In Stores Saturday!
Issues With Floyd County Hit Home For Police Officers
By: Carolyn Grindrod, RNW staff writer
Many Floyd County Police officers say that despite the issues concerning pay and safety, the department is still a great place to work.
However, with these problems still comes a lot of stress and heartache for the officers.
“I don’t want to get rich doing this, that’s not what this is about,” said FCPD Captain Tom Ewing, a 20 year FCPD veteran who currently works second shift. “It’s just that we’re so short staffed that it’s hard; it really stresses us all out.”
After two divorces, the father of three says that his job takes a toll on his personal life; however, he added that the strain does not necessarily come from the department. Like a lot of the FCPD officers, Ewing takes on several odd jobs to help pay bills and support his children. These jobs take him away from home as he works as a security guard for Georgia Power and at the Braves Stadium, and contracts construction, landscaping and even explosive work.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to work other jobs just to pay the bills and support my kids. I love my job, but I have a house payment and car payment just like everyone else,” he said. “I definitely don’t live above my means, but it’s hard.”
Ewing added that the divorce rate for those in the department is extremely high
“I don’t blame the department for my failed marriages, but I definitely see a lot of officers with the same problems,” he said. “We all have to work more than one job to get by and working nearly 80 hours a week, we don’t get time to spend with our spouse, or even to tuck our kids in bed at night. Sometimes it would have been two or three days before I would have seen my kids.”
The shortage problem also causes officers a lot of physical and emotional strain. Officers find they cannot take their vacation time, because with the shortage, it is tough to fill the shifts and they feel it would leave the other officers too short handed.
“We’re like a close knit family,” said Ewing. “You don’t want to leave your brother’s high and dry. Even if you wanted to take a vacation, you’d feel guilty because everyone has to rearrange their schedule just because you wanted a little off time and with the lack of officers already that’s just super tough. With our officers working all the time, we see a lot of them sick and sleep deprived.”
With the lack of manpower, Chris Fincher, committee spokesman and third shift officer, said that at any given time and with nearly every shift there are just four of five officers along with a supervisor on duty.
“It gets hard when there are a lot of calls,” said Fincher. “A lot of times people from first or second shift get held over to help out the next shift. We just do what we have to because we don’t have a choice.”
Ewing says that the number of officers on the road has not changed in the last 10 years, but that the number of emergency calls in the area has increased due to the county’s population growth.
“It’s getting to a point where it’s just not safe for our guys,” he said. “For instance, if you got one guy covering one of the areas across Floyd County, it may take up 25 minutes for his back up to get there. I remember not too long ago I had a high speed chase with this guy and he crashed, and we fought for nearly seven minutes before my backup was able to get to us.
Tim Minter, Floyd County native and FCPD patrol officer of six years, said having a shortage of officers is additionally detrimental to the community because often with a large call volume, calls will have to be prioritized.
“We’d like to get to every call we get within five minutes of getting the call, but that’s just not the case,” said Minter. “If we have a bar fight and maybe a prowler call going on at the same time, we have to answer which ever is more important, and that is usually the one where people could get hurt. It’s definitely frustrating, because going to a call nearly 30 to 40 minutes after it happened can be very hostile. You can’t focus on the call you’ve got because you’re automatically thinking about the next one. But we’ve just learned to deal with it.”
Ewing said nearly 20 years ago, the department attracted a lot more qualified, potential applicants, and hopes to see changes that would bring more people to fill the shortage.
“I was born and raised here,” said Ewing. “My sister is a nurse, and my dad was in this line of work, so we understand the nature of the business. However, I’ve seen a large decline in the number of people who are interested in applying.”
Ewing added that when he applied, nearly 200 people took the test and out of those 25 would have been applicable for the available positions.
“Now, we might get about 25 applications and are lucky if we get one that passes all the requirements,” he said. “Then we train them for six to nine months, and after they’re mandated, their gone to find better benefits and pay. It’s just a little disheartening.”
The officers have banned together to start a committee to help address some of these problems, and hope that the commissioners hear their pleas.
“Pay is really not completely the issue, and I’m definitely not in this just for me,” said Ewing. “I’m really doing this for the younger guys. I don’t want to see anyone go through two divorces, work multiple jobs and never get to see their kids like I did. I just want to be able to give them a better life then what I had.”
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