Lubbock Police told KLBK and EverythingLubbock.com that they received a record number of applications from people wanting to become LPD officers for this upcoming class.
“It tells me the efforts we’re putting into recruiting are working,” LPD Chief Greg Stevens said. “The recipe that we have for recruiting is working.”
LPD Sergeant Corey Nunley said the department had about 180 applicants show up to police academy in October 2015, to a little over 200 this past February, to now receiving 788 applications from men and women all across the state wanting to join Lubbock Police.
Sergeant Nunley said after each applicant was given a survey asking about their interest in joining the department, several candidates said they were motivated by the police shootings in Dallas and overall criticism of law enforcement to become a police officer.
“They believe on many levels that they see what they can do to really make a difference in society and rather than criticize law enforcement I think they want to take the opportunity to help out and do their part,” Chief Stevens said.
“A little over a third of our applicants said what drove them to apply to the police department in Lubbock was because of the things they’ve seen in the media and things that have gone on nationally dealing with police, in particular to the shootings in Dallas,” Sergeant Nunley said.
Sergeant Nunley said LPD has a budget to hire a certain number of candidates after they pass the course. He added that the department is continuing to recruit but predict the competition will get stronger in coming months with more applicants than before.
“As a recruiter, I was very happy as far as that goes for the department because with over 780 applicants that gives us a strong base to start with by the time we get to test date,” Sergeant Nunley said. “On test date, we had 250 applicants show up. That’s a very large number considering we have these tests three times a year.”
“There was a time when we were really really short staffed and we still are but with this class we hired we had six maybe seven openings left and I anticipate that in January we’ll have more qualified applicants than we have available openings and at that time we’ll talk about opening more positions,” Chief Stevens said.
Anyone interested in applying for the Lubbock Police Department can find the application on their website here.
