POLICE FORCE MUST KEEP PACE WITH GROWING CITY

The hiring last week of four Cape Girardeau police officers to replace four officers who have resigned over the past six months is a welcome development in a department that must respond to a steadily rising number of police calls.

Not only do increasing requests for officers' to both emergency and routine matters point to the need for a department at full strength; so does a wave of recent drug-related arrests that grew out of indictments handed down by a county grand jury investigating illegal drug activities in the city.

Those more than two-dozen drug-related arrests, and the slayings in August of Sherry Scheper and her two sons, Curtis and Randy, in what police described as drug-related killings, are grisly indications that drug trafficking in the city has reached serious proportions. Illegal drug trafficking must be confronted head-on by an efficient and adequately staffed police department if the problem is not to run rampant.

The city's police chief, Howard Boyd Jr., has said he would like to add some detectives to the criminal investigation division, where 10 detectives handle a heavy caseload. Whether additional detectives are hired must wait until next year's budget process, which is just getting under way, is complete.

With city sales tax revenue starting to rebound, funds for the hiring of additional police staff just might be available next fiscal year. Because of slumping sales tax revenue, the department streamlined operations last year to eliminate extra administrative salaries. The move was aimed at freeing up future money for additional officers.

Boyd has said he is re-implementing a training program that was used about 15 years ago, in which patrolmen were assigned to the criminal division for three months. The patrolmen, including the four new officers, will again work a stint with the detectives, helping to ease their workloads while the patrolmen receive valuable investigation training. It proved beneficial in the past and should be so again.

The size of the city has increased significantly in recent years, and the department has had to keep pace with that growth without any significant increase in manpower. If the money is there, the city should give serious consideration to the hiring of additional police officers in its next budget.