Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams was at the event along with SPD recruits. He explained the selection process for recruits.
"It starts with an interest card. And then you talk to your recruiter. And then there's an application you fill out. Then you come in for a written test, physical agility test, pass those to go to an interview with a board of experienced police professionals, HR folks. If you pass those three things, then we give you a background investigations questionnaire. It's about 30 (to) 35 pages long — your entire life. We dive into it, and if you survive that review, which goes through the entire chain of command, and all of that can take place and as quick as a month or two, three months average, it can take as long as six months to go through all that, then you get to the stage where I would offer you a job in the academy," he said. "And we have what we call post offering testing. So medical screening, drug screening, psychological screening and a polygraph. Those things usually take two to four weeks as well and then you're ready to start the academy. (The) academy is six months long, field training three months after that, so it can take us as long as a year, year and a half of the day from you go, I want to be a cop in Springfield to the day you actually graduate the academy."
I also spoke with Trey Thompson, 27, and Jordan Ruffin, 20. They are both part of the department's 80th Academy. What follows are some highlights from our conversation.
So what made you decide that you wanted to become a police officer?
Thompson: It was something that I always had at the back of my mind for a while, but I just felt the need to try other things to figure out if they were for me or not. Like I went to Missouri State and got a bachelor's degree in biology. So it's not totally related to the law enforcement, but I had a few jobs in the biology field and just wasn't really satisfied with the work, and I just kept coming back to this. I got family that were law enforcement and just seeing how proud my dad was, like what he did with his career just made me want to pursue something similar.
How about you?
Ruffin: Similar to Thompson. It's always been something I've wanted to do. Growing up, my grandfather was a police officer in Baltimore County along with my father. So it's always been something I've wanted to do, but age was always a factor. So when I when I was that age, I feel like I definitely took a chance. I've been kind of on that path for a while now, like I said, starting in dispatch, doing security, things like that, trying to gear myself towards police and stuff. I always felt like that's what I'm drawn to do.
Is there anything you guys are nervous about?
Thompson: I guess just not doing enough to prepare myself for the work. Like they're giving us everything we need, but still, it's just, it's a lot.
Are you nervous about anything?
Ruffin: Nervous? Of course — nervous for a lot of stuff. I mean, of course you want to pass the tests. You have the practical you need to pass. You're nervous for that. Really, the big thing I'm nervous for is being able to learn, like, take what I'm learning and using it. Because, of course, our goal is to help the city of Springfield. We don't want to do anything to hurt the city of Springfield, so making sure that we're truly understanding what we're learning and being able to apply that into the real world, pretty nerve wracking.
It's a lot of responsibility.
Ruffin: A lot of responsibility. Yeah, yeah, a lot of responsibility.
As long as we were talking about new officers, I figured I'd ask Chief Williams about Springfield Police Department's issues filling vacancies — he told me that police departments across the country have had high vacancies since the early 2000s — before continuing on.
"We historically — go back 10, 15 years before this — 20 to 25 vacancies at any one time, where we had been, where we had been as high as 65, 67 vacancies. Right now I'm at 50. And we are working, getting that back down to that historical average of about 20 or 25. I'm very confident by the end of next year — we get this class done, we have another class starting February of '26 we're testing for right now, and then we'll run another class in the fall of '26. By the time we get those two, I think we'll be back to that historical, you know, about 20 or 25 vacancies," said Williams.