Lincoln City Councilman pushing to add more police officers in the next five years

Roy Christensen and the Lincoln Police Union held a press conference on Sunday to address the understaffed police force in Lincoln.

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Councilman Roy Christensen is urging the city to add 42 police officers over the next five years to address chronic public safety needs. This would increase the authorized force to 400 officers by the year 2026.

“We’re falling behind,” Christensen said. “There is some serious consequences for our city with a police department that is understaffed.”

According to the Lincoln Police Union, the Lincoln Police Department currently has an authorized police force of 358 officers, but only had 341 commissioned personnel as of December 2020. The department would need to staff a minimum of 440 officers to manage the current workload with optimal shift lengths.

Currently, Lincoln has the fewest officers per capita of any Nebraska city with a population of over 5,000. The union added that LPD would need over 500 officers to be equivalent to Omaha’s police force.

“Our staffing has always been a problem at Lincoln,” Lincoln Police Union president Brad Hulse said. “We’ve always done more with less. We’ve been one of the smallest police departments of our size in the country.”

Over the last two years, LPD has hired 51 new officers. Christensen said 58 officers left the department because of retirement or they decided to move to other cities. Christensen said the city and public must first prioritize the department and give it the financial resources it needs to improve.

You can view the full story in the video above.