Norwalk police hires 2 new officers

NORWALK — The Norwalk Police Department hired two new officers, pending graduation from their academy. After struggling with hiring officers for many years, the department has conditionally filled two spots. New hires Jessica Craft and Alexandria Cochran will join the force once they have completed training at North Central State Police Academy. "They were given conditional offers, they still have to finish police academy over the next few weeks," Norwalk police Chief Scott Dahlgren said. Dahlgren said they will have pre-employment procedures to follow, including a psych exam, polygraph and physical exam for medical requirements, but the department is hopeful the new recruits will begin within the next month. The department budgeted for 25 officers but only currently employs 20, raising this to 22 once the two new officers start. Commanders have been trying to fill these extra spots for many years but have struggling with recruiting. "We have five open positions right now, so we've made two offers," Dahlgren said. "We anticipate at least one more and then we're going to continue to evaluate the people that applied and where we want to move from there." Dahlgren also noted that the department is implementing new recruiting tactics in hopes of trying to encourage more people to start academy training, which would include advertising on social media, and visiting local academies. "They went to most academies within northern Ohio, and spoke with the cadets and brought them applications just to make it as easy as they could," Dahlgren said. "We've come up with a new card that we can bring with us to recruitment events or to the academies where they can just fill their name with an email address and phone number. So we can get right back in touch with them."