Officers' reps say Durham understates police department vacancies

A spokesman for FOP, which operates like a police union, said that, on any given day, the police department has about 60 to 70 percent of the officers on duty that it should have. He said he's not sure if that has affected response times, but it is affecting officers' emotional and physical health.

"For uniformed patrol officers, working 12-hour shifts, sometimes with little to no down time, it becomes exhausting," he said.

The Durham Police Department has said that 69 of its 537 sworn officer positions are vacant, but the union spokesman said the number is really 88, because officials aren't counting officers still in training. The higher number puts the department's vacancy rate at 16 percent.

"The numbers of operational vacancies will continue to rise due to officers leaving the department, either due to retirement, another agency or just leaving law enforcement altogether," the union spokesman said. " The department loses about five people, on average, a month due to one of the above reasons."

Durham Police Department officials didn't respond to a request for comment.

The vacancy rate is caused by low pay and a perceived lack of support from Durham leaders, he said. The department pays 8 to 10 percent below what other area law enforcement agencies pay, he said.

"The Durham Police Department continues to recruit new officers to the best of their ability," he said. "Unfortunately, it’s a tough time for law enforcement across the nation to recruit and retain new officers. For this to be done, agencies have to offer competitive pay [and] benefits, and employees need to feel like they are going to be supported by the people who are running the city they work in."

Former Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews said the police department's vacancy rate is concerning, and he agreed that local leaders need to step up and provide more support for officers.

"It’s a hard time for men and women to be in law enforcement," Andrews said. "I think that the men and women both in the city and the county feel like they don’t get any support from their community leaders, and I think that’s a big telltale sign of why there are shortages, not only in the law enforcement side, but in the 911 center and EMS also."

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Durham residents said they are concerned that crimes are going unsolved because of the staffing problems.

"We’ve got too much crime in Durham to have low staffing," Barbara Self said. "If you’ve got something going on in the neighborhood and you can’t get a policeman there to look out, yeah, it’s going to affect us all."

"There definitely needs to be more police," said Steven Shealey, whose brother was killed two years ago in a crime that remains unsolved. "Whoever picks up the case, they don’t know what’s going on. A lot of the time, the ball gets dropped."

Yet, Shealey said he understands the difficulties faced by the police department.

"I know everybody always criticizes the police. They’re always jumping on the police. But the police are understaffed. You can’t do but so much with limited resources," he said. "They’re just doing the best they can with what they got."