LITTLE ROCK — Jayden Palmer, 4, helped his dad, Jeremy Palmer, pin the badge bearing his father’s new police credentials.
“He just likes the uniform,” Jeremy Palmer, 31, of Little Rock, said.
Palmer was one of the 31 recruits who graduated Friday from the Little Rock Police Recruiting School’s 72nd class at the training facility at 10901 Arch St.
The department had not graduated a class for about two years, and police administrators touted the newest class as one of the most diverse yet.
Seven of the new officers are women - three white and four black - and eight are black men, according to police records.
The class had the most blacks yet, said recruiter Lt. Odie Fuller.
The 66th class, which had 23 members and graduated in September 2007, had five women - two black, two white and one Hispanic - and two black men, she said. The 69th class, which had 21 recruits, had one black woman, two white women and one black man, she said.
Recruiting hasn’t changed, Fuller said, adding that it all depends on who passes the beginning screening stages.
“Once [the recruits] come through the process, it’s all up to the background [checks],” Fuller said. “I’m happy the chief was able to sign off on all of these, too.”
The new officers will fill more than half of the department’s 59 open positions, spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said. The department had about 180 officers on patrol as of September, police records show.
The next training academy, scheduled to begin in a week, likely will have 27 recruits, she said.
The 1 percent sales tax that voters approved in September 2011 helped make the new classes possible, officials said. Five-eighths of the 1.5 percent city sales tax goes toward general operations, which help fund new city employees.
“The citizens have allowed us to do this,” said Police Chief Stuart Thomas, adding that the assistance has helped to improve the city’s quality of life.
“From the very first day,we tell our officers there are going to be times they’re going to be by themselves,” Thomas said. “But they are never going to be alone.”
Mayor Mark Stodola congratulated the officers who completed the 24-week school.
“We put so much trust and so much confidence in you to not only represent the city of Little Rock, but also to represent the rule of law,” Stodola said.
“We spend a lot of time looking at how we can work on the issues of safety,” he said, adding that recent technology has helped. “But there’s nothing as a substitute for your ability to interact with our citizens.”
All newly inducted officers will spend the next three months patrolling an assigned district with a training officer.
Palmer, who graduated with two class honors and had waited two years to get into a recruiting school, said he didn’t expect the classes to be so tough.
“It was fun, it was hard, and some of it was painful,” he said.
Recruits had tests every other week, but the toughest part was the physical training, he said.
“It was tough for us to join as a unit, frustrating at times,” said officer Kenneth Baker, who graduated as class leader. “We marched together, and if one person messed up, we all messed up. We all paid for it as a group.”
Baker, 26, of Little Rock, said he’d been in the U.S. Army Reserve for about nine years and was looking for his next career move.
“I joined the military because I wanted to serve my country,” he said. “I felt like this was a way to serve my people at home, my community.”
Kristen Watson, 31, of Little Rock, said the recruiting school brought out strengths in her that she never knew she had.
“Being a woman in the field, you have to get to a point where you feel secure on the job, and I’m leaving here today feeling that way,” she said.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 12/08/2012