SAN ANTONIO – The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office is making a big push to recruit and the push comes as the latest emergency call and crime numbers have been released.
“Your career is a key, it’s an important thing in life,” BCSO Deputy Santiago Robles said.
Santiago joined the sheriff’s department less than a year ago. He is one of the newer members at the sheriff’s office and there is now a big effort to bring in more deputies.
“We’re trying to hire, you know, just like every other law enforcement agency in the country right now. Manpower is an issue,” Sheriff Javier Salazar said.
There is a career fair coming Saturday and as an incentive, there is a $2,000 signing bonus for detention deputies.
“We’re still being a bit selective on who gets into the sheriff’s office. And understandably so. But we’re hiring for the detention side and the law enforcement side of the house,” Salazar said.
BCSO is looking to fill hundreds of jobs, but the sheriff says the process it going to be challenging and that they are looking for accountability.
“When we hit a stumbling block as an agency, we plow through it and we handle it with transparency and with the public. We let everybody know, hey, look, this is what happened. This is how we handle it and this is how we’re going to address it moving forward,” Salazar said.
The big recruitment push is while in the midst of an uptick in crime.
“What we’re seeing now is we are seeing a slight uptick in violent crime. We’re seeing a lot more guns on the street. And so we just ask people to continue to call in activity and let us handle it as needed,” Salazar said.
Calls to the sheriff’s department are up more than 4 percent.
Salazar said two of the big problems they see are domestic violence and child abuse. And another number that jumps out is the number of mental health calls: 318 this year to their new smart team.
“The Smart Team, as you know, is a multidisciplinary team that pairs up a paramedic, a mental health worker and a mental health deputy. And the three of them will handle the calls in the most appropriate way,” Salazar said.