Tulsa is way short of having enough officers to patrol the streets. To meet the demand, Police Chief Chuck Jordan is temporarily reassigning detectives to patrol cars.
Vision sales tax funding is paying for new police academies, but it will take awhile for the classes to generate enough officers to address the department attrition rate. Chief Jordan says that is particularly true with Spanish-fluent officers.
He says the department heavily recruiting in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas; all states with higher Hispanic populations.