Polk County Sheriff Jim Tadman provided his monthly report to the Polk County Commissioners this week. During that report, he was asked about the incident in Fosston where several cars had been hit by bullets. Tadman said he was happy with the work of his officers in investigating and arresting a suspect. “I’m very happy with our officers and the assistance from Mahnomen County,” said Tadman. “After getting the information and digging into our patrol and investigations worked hand in hand and came up with a suspect. I’m glad to take care of things. I think it eases people’s mind that we don’t have somebody out there randomly shooting. We have not heard from any other county that there were any other incidents, it’s a one-time incident. We had four vehicles hit during that, but the suspect is in custody at this time.”
The Sheriff’s Office has also been dealing with some turnover since the beginning of the year with four deputy positions opening up for a variety of reason. “Right at the beginning of the year, including with Sheriff Erdman retiring we’ve had a turnover of four new deputies in our office,” said Tadman. “We had one of our deputies leave right at the beginning of the year for Minneapolis and he was on patrol. We had one of our transport deputies leave with her husband to the Seattle area, so in turn, East Grand Forks also had an opening. We had one of our patrol deputies move into East Grand Forks and is working with them. We’ve been very busy at the office, all of our staff have been busy and we’ve been hiring. We are now in training mode for four new deputies including 3 males and 1 female. They will start out in transport positions and as openings come up they will move into other openings within the department.”
Tadman said the department was able to quickly fill in the road deputy positions because they put their transfer deputies through patrol training to have them road ready. “We have now moved three transport deputies into patrol positions,” said Tadman. “They were all already trained for patrol which is big because we have a 16-week patrol officer training that we consider PTO training. Our Sergeant of Investigations Mike Norland was promoted up to Chief Deputy so now we’re in the process of promoting internally into a Sergeant position. It is going to take some time, but sooner or later we’ll get all situated so we’re not training and training and training.”
Like many dispatch centers throughout the country, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office has also been operating their dispatch shorthanded for an extended amount of time. Tadman was able to report that the department is currently doing background checks on a potential dispatcher that if hired would bring the department to full staff for the first time in well over a year. “We are doing the background on our last position at this time,” said Tadman. “Pending where that comes we could be hiring our last one. We have two in the final stages of training and just had one come out and be able to work by themselves. We have about a 22-week training and its very time consuming, then they work as a backup for about a year. They are working to be able to work alone because there will be times they might have to work alone. We’re still in the training phase with two others and one being backgrounded and then we’ll be full staff.”
A lack of qualified applicants for dispatching is not uncommon and Tadman said it the shortage also has to do with needing to find someone who can handle the technology and multi-tasking. “There are other counties going through the same thing we’ve been going through with dispatch,” said Tadman. “The technology has grown so much so you just have to find that right person that wants to be able to watch five or six screens. Then you dispatch ambulance, fire and law enforcement to the scene and answer calls as well.”
The Polk County Dispatchers answer all the 911 call in the county and work with both City Police Departments, all the Fire Departments and Ambulance Services in Polk County. “During the day Monday through Friday, Crookston has their own dispatch, but we take all the 911 calls for the entire county,” said Tadman. “We dispatch all the fire throughout Polk County and our law enforcement. East Grand Forks has their own dispatch and their own law enforcement center, but we take the 911 calls and send them over to Grand Forks. I’ve sat back there and tried to see if I can assist, but it’s not like the old days where you answer the phone and log it in. Now you CAD everything in. They say there is no such thing as multi-tasking, but let’s put it this way, you need to do many things at once. Just one call doesn’t make everything else stop in the county, they have to juggle calls and prioritize everything coming in.”
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