North Texas

Plano Police Hiring More Officers

The North Texas population boom means there's a demand for additional police officers.

The Plano Police Department currently has six openings and additional positions could be added in the near future.

"We've had to look what the growth is. We've had to look at the expectations for the future and try to make some kind of determination about how large we need to be, how many officers are out on the street and how many investigators we need available," said Plano Police Lt. Douglas Deaton. "The six openings are a far cry of how many we're going to have to hire in the years to come and I can only speculate what that number is going to be."

Plano has an estimated 350 police officers. More than 100 are eligible for retirement, police said.

"We know many of these openings we're going to have is due to retirements which are coming sooner rather than later," said Deaton.

Plano has an estimated population of 275,000 residents.

In 2015, police reported 5,550 major crimes compared to 1,880 this year. The majority of the cases were property crimes (thefts, larceny, and burglaries).

"We don't have any information to indicate that our crime rate will increase with any particular category with this (population) growth. Do we expect new demands for service? Increase expectations? Of course we do, but I don't think the crime rate itself will grow," Deaton said.

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