POLICE OFFICERS EVERYWHERE HAVE THE HABIT of sharing rumors. Some of these wild stories split the hairs of humanity and can frequently entail numbers games of all amounts and decimal places.
HPOU President Joe Gamaldi cited one example in the December general membership meeting. He pointed out that officers always seem to be misquoting the number of officers on the Houston Police Department roster.
Ever the rumor-buster, Gamaldi cited HPD’s latest number: 5,366 officers – from the chief down to the rookie at the end of the alphabetical order of the latest graduates of the Academy.
He boiled it down as follows:
• 4,150 commissioned officers
• 948 sergeants
• 208 lieutenants
• 44 captains
• Eight assistant chiefs
• Two executive assistant chiefs
• One chief of police
Gamaldi pointed out that during the New Year of 2020 that 5,366 number should grow with the graduation of even more police cadet classes.
The point here is that the HPD number is growing, not shrinking, as has been the previous case. The Department historically has been underfunded, undermanned and underequipped. It’s good to see the new year begin with numbers that are increasing, not decreasing.