South Bend Police Department swears in ten new officers

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The South Bend Public Safety Board held a meeting to formally welcome the largest single group of new recruits in department history.

On Thursday morning, 10 new officers where swore into the department with most of the officer's being recent graduates of the police academy.

"So, we had a 16-week long police academy. A lot of it was dealing with de-escalation of situations, just talking to people and just kind of learning how to be a human being when you're when you're approaching someone you've never met before." said David Stefanovski, a newly sworn-in officer.

The SPBD is now halfway toward its goal of hiring 40 new officers.

"Yeah, that's going to make a huge difference for us. We're down to operating it at 212. Right now, that's on, on our roster. But when you throw in military leave, sick, injured, vacation, things of that nature, that really takes us down a lot lower," said Chief of Police, Scott Ruszkowski. "So, a lot of officers have been working double or double shifts to cover those gaps. So hopefully, as this progress, we'll be able to ease up on the officers."

SBPD says another 10 students are at the academy right now and will help the department reach its year end goal of adding 40 new officers.