ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. — There’s no question, Port St. Lucie residents, like David Poleshi, are seeing more of the red and blue throughout the city.
“I definitely notice an increase of police officers on the highways or in the neighborhoods,” said Poleshi. “I see a lot more radar cars out. I see a lot more people getting tickets.”
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And that’s no coincidence.
“This is the largest the agency's ever been,” said Port St. Lucie Police Chief Leo Niemczyk.
Niemczyk said the city is growing and he wants the force to grow with it.
“It's just like building roads,” said Chief Niemczyk. “Do you want to bring all the people here and then build the roads for them to get around? Or do you want the roads in place?”
Right now, Niemczyk said the department is fully staffed with 336 sworn officers and has hired 28 cadets, to fill 29 vacancies, when they graduate the academy in October.
“We're planning to fulfill the needs of the organization,” he said. “Not just today, but tomorrow, next year and the year after.“
But how do they do it?
“What do big departments do?” said Chief Niemczyk. “They hire their own academy classes.”
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An academy at Indian River State College where they’ll hire and pay cadets to go through.
“By the time they get out of the academy, they'll have completed phase one of field training,” Niemczyk said. “We're already a whole lot further ahead and closer to having them out on the street on their own.”
The chief said it’s also their higher pay, starting at over $69,000 and up to $84,000 with experience.
"The salary is a big plus for us,” said Niemczyk. “It really helps hire people when you're competitive or better than the competition.“
He said while they have adequate staffing, they still want to grow alongside city growth.
“We're shooting at a moving target,” said Niemczyk. “Our objective is to increase the ratio of officers to residents.”
