Montgomery County Police Department working to navigate growing officer shortage

Montgomery County police working to navigate growing officer shortage

As police in Montgomery County continue to navigate the impacts of an officer shortage, they are planning for even more vacancies with expected retirements in the coming months.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. - As police in Montgomery County continue to navigate the impacts of an officer shortage, they are planning for even more vacancies with expected retirements in the coming months.

According to Chief Marc Yamada with the Montgomery County Police Department, the department is currently short about 170 officers. Full staff would be roughly 1,300 officers, according to Chief Yamada.

"MCPD has a ratio of 1 to 1. One officer for every 1,000 residents. The national average is 2.5 officers for every 1,000. So even if we were fully staffed, we’d still be below that optimal level," Yamada said. "Despite the challenges we face with staffing, being as short as we are, they [officers] still maintained a high degree of professionalism, the services they provided are still outstanding. Our response times have gone down from this year to last year and we still maintain a high closure rate on our violent crimes, and our violent crimes have gone down in almost every category."

Yamada presented a report on the shortages Monday before a county council committee on public safety. According to the report, response times are the most impacted due to staffing shortages.

"For 2024, MCPD priority response times have decreased slightly from last year. Routine response time changes are mixed. While routine responses in most districts also decreased from last year, apart from 1D (Rockville) and 2D (Bethesda), which both saw increases," the report states.

Right now, Yamada said the agency is looking at all possible options to address the shortage. This includes looking at units that initially created when staffing levels were better.

"We have two gang units. We have three narcotics units. We have a certain number of homicide detectives. We have a unit that investigates auto thefts. Those are all units we have going to examine across the board and say, ‘Do we need that many officers working those cases, versus should we put some of them back on the road?’ Those are very difficult decisions. You’re talking about impacting officers’ lives and things like that. So, we’re looking at other options. Redrawing district boundaries, helping out with an executive on overtime and callback. Things like that," he said.

Oscar Masuku is the owner of Afrikutz, a barber shop on Georgia Avenue. Masuku’s shop has been in the neighborhood for 24 years and typically, he said he is closed by 9 p.m.

"At midnight, sometimes we hang around until later. 1am to 4am, that’s when the serious crimes happen. There’s gunshots," he said.

He added, he would like to see more police presence and presence in the overnight hours.

"What it is, is the crime with the guns is just out of hands. They break into people’s cars. That’s crazy in downtown Silver Spring," he said. "So, if police can work midnight, more police on the street than daytime. Daytime is fine, because of daylight but midnight — that’s when we need more security."

Yamada said another challenge is the applicant pool itself is being looked at by other neighboring districts.

"We are all fishing from the same pond meaning, myself, Gaithersburg city, Rockville city, Takoma Park, Chevy Chase Village, US Capitol, Howard County, PG. We’re all in the same pool of candidates that we have to be better, a little bit more creative, innovative to our approach," he said.

The report states despite the slight decrease from 2023, both priority and routine response times remain elevated over pre-pandemic averages.