South Bend Police Department promotes 14 officers

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Fourteen new South Bend Police Officers took a step forward in their careers on Wednesday morning.

The department promoted all of them to patrolman first class.

Their promotion marks the completion of a one-year probationary period since they joined the force.

South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski told ABC57 News Wednesday, he's very proud to see the entire class meet all the requirements to move up.

"I think the most notable thing about this, though, is there's 14 officers just over a year ago, who were sworn in going through their probationary phase and now they're all PFC," said Chief Ruszkowski.

The chief says this is the largest group to be promoted to patrolman first class in recent memory, at almost twice as many as the previous record.

The department put on a massive recruitment effort in response to a severe officer shortage, but they're now fully staffed.