Metro plans West Coast recruiting

Metro Police will again be hitting the road and traveling out of state in an effort to pick up some new recruits to serve and protect the growing Southern Nevada population.

In April Metro recruiters visited New York City and tested 750 potential officers, and this fall they will be on the West Coast.

"Our next recruiting trip is scheduled for October in Southern California," Metro recruiting officer Charles Jenkins said. "We'll be testing for both police and correctional officers, so we should have a pretty big turnout."

Every year Metro gets about 4,000 employment inquiries and ends up hiring about 250 new officers.

The results of the New York testing are still being evaluated. Those who qualified in April are expected to arrive in Las Vegas in January, Jenkins said.

Once here, recruits will go through a modified police academy depending on their experience level.

In the past, rookies and veterans trained together in a 20-week academy followed by 18 weeks of field training. The modified academy keeps that training for incoming rookies but allows active police officers from other agencies with at least three years of experience to go through a 10-week academy and four to 10 weeks of field training.

Metro has gone to an active recruiting program to keep up with the explosive growth in the Las Vegas Valley, Jenkins said.

The metropolitan area is growing by about 5,700 people every month according to the UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research.

A 1996 property tax levy will help defray the cost of 450 of the total number of new officers hired between now and 2002.

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