[Music] thanks for joining us for the portland police bureau's talking beat this is public information officer sergeant kevin allen today on the talking beat terry wallow strauss of our strategic communications unit has a conversation about recruitment and hiring with chief chuck lavelle and ppb's recruitment sergeant trevor tyler we receive a lot of questions about our recruitment and hiring efforts and our plans to build the bureau back up in regard to staffing we hope this provides some good information enjoy the show [Music] i'm glad you both are here today because i think you both bring a lot of knowledge um trevor did you know that the chief was the first recruitment sergeant and the last right yeah the only the only i love it looks like big shoes to fill so um let's recap for our listeners who may not be um in the weeds of our staffing like we are the bureau lost about 170 sworn members since july 2020 and that was due to retirements and resignations so i'm not going to put an exact number on it because it changes almost every day but right now we're in the upper 700s and that's total sworn staff so it's important to remember that's not officers that's from the chief on down through all our ranks and then we have a considerable amount of officers who haven't been trained and are waiting to go on patrol and so we'll round up and say we have about 100 vacancies right now and more retirements are expected this summer so chief after that little history i don't want to spend too much time looking back but i want to sort of clear up you know how we got here and um what's changed in our hiring and where we're going well we always had vacancies we've had those for some time but when we took the budget cut in 2020 we essentially lost the money that we would uh use to hire people we knew we weren't going to have the budget to bring people on board and one of the moves we made at that time was to lay off some of our background folks because we knew we weren't going to be hiring and we weren't going to need as many as we had in the past so that um is something that set us back a little bit on hiring and now we're in the process of hiring new backgrounders to kind of fill that void but we did have a recent city council vote um that was a 5-0 vote which is really a big deal on a package that included more resources for police so i'm very happy about that and now we're looking at ways where we can bring people on board get them trained through dpsst we've got the retire rehire program restarting to maybe bring back some folks who would otherwise be retiring so i think those are the things we're looking at in the future but i think for us really having a fully functioning personnel unit with a great sergeant like trevor and and fully staffed on backgrounders is going to be a big boost to our efforts and that brings me to you trevor yes ma'am nice lead in chief so you walked into this you know with a big assignment what did you start doing first uh well i think the first thing was just kind of take an assessment of where we were at right um to be able to start moving forward as opposed to start jumping you want to kind of have vision of where we want to go and i think all of us want to get back to a place where we're fully staffed and on a regular basis every shift at every precinct has got the resources that they need for the mission that's in front of them so taking kind of an assessment of where all the precincts were at and what we could do in our office to be able to start helping bolster those precinct assignments was definitely kind of priority number one we have actually been in this spot before we maybe we haven't been as low staffing as we have our numbers are the lowest they have been in like the last 30 years but we've been in places where we've had these groups that are all hired around the same time and then they retire at the same time and we have i'm old enough to remember where we tried to hire 80 people in a short amount of time so it's not unheard of yeah op 80 is quoted quite often right now right is that's kind of the mission before us and because it has been accomplished before there is a lot of optimism in our office that we're going to be able to accomplish that mission again so how do you recruit in a pandemic yeah uh it is definitely nuanced um i think that we are going to be taking advantage of a lot of the social media platforms that we have in the past historically but then we need to go to the places where we know that we have a high likelihood of success uh colleges uh military places the people that are looking for the next step in their life and we want one of those next steps for them to be an opportunity in the portland police bureau people that have an enthusiasm to serve people that are eager to get an experience that is unlike anything else that they will ever experience and that's what they can find here that leads me to ask you chief who's your ideal candidate you know i think you know trevor mentioned an important word and it's serve and service i think really we want people that want to come serve the community of portland the city of portland and i think coming to this work and thinking about the service piece is key and we have an enforcement role that's for sure but there's a service component to it that's very important and i think right now the important message for for folks is this is uh you know not the easiest time to come into this profession but it might be one of the most important times to be in this profession because there's a lot of change um occurring now and on the horizon and we want people who are committed to you know to being flexible uh seeing that change being part of that change the change that they want to see in policing and in the community so give me your sales pitch trevor um well i'll tell you what there's a great novel that i think every one of us was assigned to read in high school called the tale of two cities and in that we learned that it was the best of times and it was the worst of times and i think within the portland police bureau it's always going to be the best of times and the worst of times it's the best of times because i get to come to work every single day and be around people that are committed and on point and on mission with me it's the worst of times right now because i think historically in america it's a really difficult time to be a police officer i think the best thing that we can do to people that are coming into this profession is let them know heads up it's a hard time to be a police officer but it's still an absolute worthy profession and you will find a depth and a resiliency that is never going to be found anywhere else and just like the chief said this is our moment what do you want your life to be about do you want your life to be about dollars or do you want your life to be about making change and i think that this change that we can be a part of right now is going to be so meaningful and impactful for the city for years to come that this is going to be they're going to talk about in books one day in a history book they're going to talk about how this was a moment where the portland police bureau could kind of paint what the next chapter was it was about and i am excited to to read that chapter and i want to be a part of making that chapter happen now that's awesome i think you know to to really piggyback on what trevor said i mean this is an important time i think you people want to do work that matters and i think that's important to a lot of people and i think probably at no time in my you know 20 years in portland and the police bureau is there a time where i think it matters more than now i think that there's an opportunity for us to to take some some good steps forward as a city and i think if we if we get the right people on board we have the right attitude and we commit to it in a collaborative way with our partners and with other city officials we can really make a difference for the city so i think you know right now is an important of a time as i can remember okay well not to be negative nelly here but um so tell me about some of the barriers and how you're tell me about how you're going to overcome some of the barriers how about that sure i think honesty is the best way forward i think that uh right now just like the chief talked about we've got a city council now that is showing their support however i think it's important for our members to recognize that rome wasn't built in a day and these changes although they are important and necessary they are going to take a little bit of time i equate it to there's now funding for us right and if we're trying to go and buy a pair of shoes we don't get to just go into a store and purchase the pair of shoes we now have the funding for more officers but we are going who's going to take time to be able to hire train equip and get them out to the street i think it's important for our members to know that we still have here that there is help coming it's just going to take a little while to develop that help and they're going to neces they're going to play a necessary role in helping develop those officers are going to be coming and staffing the street yeah well you open the door to training there i don't know which one of you wants to talk about that but again you know i don't think people are in the weeds and really understand how long our training process is and what's involved you want to talk about that chief yeah i think starting out for folks you know the the first step for uh just about all the officers coming into this profession is a stop at dpsst down in salem to get their basic training done and as dpsst has their you know staffing issues budget issues and they have to accommodate the whole state they're really seeing some pressure on having classes rolling out full classes to get folks in and through the academy so we're working really closely with them to make sure that people we hire can get into and through the academy in a timely manner and i think you know after that's over there's still the 18-month probation too that we have to get people through we have to have the right amount of coaches we have to have the right staffing at our training division to provide advanced academy training and such so it's definitely a long haul to get someone from the time they apply to the time they're off probation and a you know fully functional portland police officer if i'm listening to this and i'm a candidate what do i do let's just cut to the chase yep uh right now what one of the things that we want to make available right is just kind of that that number one interfacing portal that we have uh good news is is that once you've gotten through that interfacing portal and have actually filled out the application we're hopeful that we're going to be able to uh reach out and actually have one of our recruiters talk to you very soon so that you're not waiting indefinitely you're actually having that personal contact and that personal touch that we're going to bring and that's what's going to set us apart is that you're not just going to come and be a number you're going to come and you're going to be a part of the bureau family that's the hope and with these new background investigators that we've got i think that's going to be a reality is that we're actually going to be able to have the staffing that is necessary to be able in a timely manner vet all of these new applicants of which we are still getting many uh in a quicker fashion which will be great because that will then matriculate into officers that are being able to be about put on the street much sooner than otherwise would be possible i apply and i i have to take a test right you do so during the the the course of the background investigation before it's complete you're going to have to take a test it's called the ntn uh which is uh recognized across the nation and you're gonna you're gonna take that test you're gonna get a you're gonna receive a score that is necessary to be able to proceed and once you've gotten that piece done you're going to be assigned to one of our background investigators that background investigator is going to ask you to complete a form called a phq a personal history questionnaire it's going to ask for a variety of pieces of information we don't want to know where you've lived who you've lived with your associates your friends we need to know a variety of background of what has made you you right and why have those experiences brought you to a place where you're going to be a viable officer for the street for the streets of portland so once that is done once you've gotten through the background investigation we have a couple of other things that we want to make sure that we've vetted to the best of our ability a psychological evaluation you're going to go and meet with one of our professional psychologists they're going to ask you a variety of questions that are going to be built kind of off of your phq they're going to they're going to look at the the life that you've lived and they want to make sure that you are a good decision maker that's one of the the key notes of being a police officer is that we want people that are making good decisions in their own life because we're asking to for them to make huge gravitational uh decisions for other people so once you've gotten through the psychological evaluation we're going to have you sent to go do a medical test we want to ensure that your body is in good working order and are able to physically do the demands of the job once that's all been accomplished we submit that entire packet all the way up through the chain of command where we have a variety of levels both sergeant captain lieutenant uh assistant chief and then chief make sure that this is actually somebody that we want to be a part of our organization so there are many layers and a lot of litmus tests that are going to be passed to ensure that this is somebody that we actually want to be able to serve in our ranks once that's accomplished we get them to come inside we swear them in and then just like the chief said we we hopefully send them off to dpsst in a timely manner and and to say you know that we've actually taken a look at that process and i know that we've we've tried to take out gaps and make it as efficient as possible it's but it's still a process but it's i think where we get the candidates that will be successful police officers as well i think it's really necessary right there's a huge expectation uh in our community that we have people that are going to again be really good decision makers so it's important that we make a really good and sometimes lengthy decision in the effort of bringing them on board because we don't want to bring people in that are going to be bad decision makers that are going to represent us in a negative way and so chief you know there's also an expectation that we build a diverse workforce as well yeah and that's important we want a workforce and an organization that reflects the community i think you have to like trevor said go to places where you're likely to find that diversity that that's a challenge here in oregon in a lot of ways too so i think we have to be mindful of places and arenas and relationships too that we can leverage to to find diversity and i think uh you know as long as i've been here i've heard you know we want more diversity we want more diversity and we've had varying degrees of success of bringing on that diversity but i think you have to be very mindful of of um of where you go to actually to contact people and sometimes it's not the traditional places you've gone in the past the job fairs the colleges sometimes it might be affinity groups or online forums or you know places like that where you can really reach out and make some connections so what do you say to our community that's listening to us i mean how can they help us well i think first and foremost one it's important for them to know that we want to to be fully staffed we want to have good people working here serving uh the people in the community um and if you know someone who's interested please definitely have them look into our website have them contact someone who uh who might work at the police bureau or someone they know we we do want to have people too who are from portland and who um are familiar with the portland community too so we want to expand our efforts but not lose sight of the fact that we do you know want people from the community working here as well absolutely i i'm being i'm born and raised here in the city of portland i it was my dream to come and be able to serve my community and i'm thankful for that opportunity and i think that every time that we get in every officer gets into a conversation with somebody where it's a meaningful conversation i don't think that it is beyond the realm of possibility and and honestly should probably one of the things that we do is talk about why we are here what is it that we're here because it's more than a paycheck it's that we actually get to contribute to the overall livelihood of the people that we work around and i think that we are we are in in the community every single day every single demographic gets touched by officers every single day so to equip our officers with you know just kind of remembering the bullet points of what makes this job so great is so essential uh we have a four-day work week that's incredible we have amazing health benefits we have a pension we have a really great compensation for the work that we do there's a variety of things that i think are really incredible about this job and we haven't even gotten to the realm of we actually make a difference like it's not just about showing up every day it's that we're going to get an opportunity to intrinsically change somebody's lives hopefully in a positive way i think that's a really meaningful thing to be able to share and hopefully be able to be a part of yeah you get to do some work that has purpose and meaning i mean we see people in such a variety of different situations doing this work and you have the opportunity to give a little bit of yourself and help them i think a lot of people i talk to who want to come into this profession or are in this profession it's because they want to help people at the end of the day and i think this is a great place to do it so i'm going to say why portland i mean i won't mention any other city but why portland yeah you know i think it matters to me i always wanted to work somewhere where it was a challenge you know you could go work at a smaller place or someplace that has less calls or as easier or you know different in some way or another but to me i wanted to be somewhere where there was purpose and meaning and i felt like my work and my presence was making a difference and i think you know here locally portland is the place to do it and also i think it's important for people to realize you know we're we're a changing agency we've been making changes for the last decade plus uh we've been working with uh department of justice through our settlement agreement a lot of the things that we've done in the last 10 years have really moved us forward in policing 21st century policing we've got some of the best training and i think it's important for people to know that we're you know we're an agency that is constantly evolving and looking to change and get better and i think some of the things you'll you'll see us rolling out this year we'll continue to show that just to piggyback on that i think uh size is a difference for us as well with size comes opportunity and i think that a variety of opportunities that are not going to be afforded officers at smaller agencies are going to be afforded here and although some of those opportunities have maybe shrunk a little bit i believe that their the growth on the horizon is tremendous so i think that right now intervening and getting into this agency is going to be ideal because you're going to be able to be the ground floor of opportunity it's like the stock market of 2008 if you will right i remember we all remember that it took a nosedive there in 2008 and my friends that took their money out in 2008 are still paying the price for it however those that stayed in and invested in they have they have benefited from the skyrocketing effect and i believe that we are on the precipice of a skyrocketing effect especially in the city of portland i think it's worthwhile to to mention too that you know we're not talking sworn officer opportunities too we now public safety support specialists who are unarmed out serving the community and we have a host of professional staff jobs too that are non-sworn uh serving and supporting the police bureau and those jobs are available also and those are jobs we want to fill with good people as well you know you talk about recruiting others but how did you get here and were there things along your career that has impacted you to become the person that you are today yeah uh shameless plug uh our cadet program uh was one of the most influential things that brought me here i got to be a cadet for the better part of four years and that was incredible being able to still go go to school and kind of pursue my education but at the same time be able to kind of dip my toe into what the police world look like but i do recall one call where i was in north portland working a night shift and we got a call of a young child that was found outside of a motel along airport way he was in his pajamas he was deaf he was blind and he was mute and uh he was terrified and i remember getting there and uh the manager was like uh we don't know what to do like uh we believe that maybe this child belongs in our hotel but we don't know somebody one of our nighttime genders just found this guy and i remember uh you know holding this this young boy's hand and he was just utterly terrified um and so i was like all right what we're gonna do is we're gonna start knocking on every single door in this hotel because i believe that this child belongs in this hotel and and i just tell this boy's hand and i had a couple of other officers come and we went and we knocked on every single door and then uh one of the the last doors that we knocked on this was where this boy belonged his parents uh let us know that he's been sleepwalking lately and he he had come out of the room he had gone down the hallway by himself in the middle of the night and it was incredible to watch as his mother came and held her son it was watching that transition of this boy was terrified to this br this person was home and um recognizing that that was that was something that we got to play a part in that boy's story could have ended any number of ways that night but it ended with reconciliation with his family and that is the goal and a lot of our calls that we go to there's hardship and there are things that are uncertain but our goal and our hope is always for reconciliation and is for hope for the next part of every person's life and that's that's incredible job that i get to be a part of every day okay trevor join portland police.com which what's your last pitch out there i'm listening i'm i'm on the edge well i'll i'd like for you to jump in uh we are ready and willing and excited for you to come be a part of this team and see exactly why so many of us want to do this day in and day out i think the opportunities of being able to be on ride-alongs is hopefully going to come back soon as we kind of face the challenges of the world around us but i think that's one of the best ways to be able to experience and recognize why this is such a beneficial job is to be able to view it through the eyes of an officer that is responding to calls so that you can that you can share in both the joy of service and the excitement of the unknown we don't know what every day brings to us and that's one of the the best and biggest appeals to this job is that one day will never look like the next there is going to be a variety of experiences that you're going to be able to have and it will be a cornucopia of experiences and that's what you want at the end of your life is to be able to have a variety of experiences that are going to make you who you are so we always end our podcast by embracing our stereotypes and chief i'm not going to ask you what your favorite donut is i know it's jelly that's it's just that's so messy i just i i don't want to go there but trevor i'm so curious what your favorite donut is i'm a maple bacon bar guy all the way and i like it from a variety of donut shops but i must say that joe's donuts out in sandy's gonna be number one not not sponsored by this box sponsor thanks for coming you guys you're welcome thanks for doing this oh man this is great thanks for listening to the talking beat do you have a question for us you can call and leave a message on our dedicated voicemail line at 971 or send us an email to talkingbeat portlandoregon.gov if you enjoyed this episode please share it with your friends more episodes can be found at our website portlandoregon.gov slash police slash podcast [Music]