Highway Patrol Responce....

[KevinFFVFD]

Hey everyone. I work for 911 and I am currently working the noon to midnight shift, and I used to work the 6PM to 6AM shift. Now before I go any further I do not want you to think I am bashing, because I am not. I have 150% respect for Law Enforcement, heck I work with LE everyday. Anyways...

Whenever there is a MVC within the "county limits" (because we dispatch both city police and county sheriff and I-20 runs through both) we also have to call the highway patrol to respond. 90% of the time they get there quickly, and sometimes a trooper will hear the dispatch on the radio and respond that way. Otherwise we have to call their dispatch center and then they call out the trooper. Here is my question....

Sometimes the nearest trooper is 45 mins or more away. Or the nearest trooper is on a felony traffic stop and cannot respond for the next few hours. But according to the highway patrol they have something like 600 troopers (if I am not mistaken which I might be). So if there is that many than why is it sometimes take so long for a trooper to arrive? And why is their such a lack of troopers on the interstate at night? During the day when I am driving I-20 I will see them everywhere. But I can go several nights and not see any. I was just wondering why this was because it seems you would need more troopers available.

Again, I have the upmost respect for the highway patrol. They are excellent officers. I was trying to understand this better since I am in contact with them while at work.

Thanks everyone, stay safe.

[ISPCAPT]

Do your math and figure shifts. 600 Troops. That means, if divided equally between all shifts and every day, which they wouldn't be, they wouldn't have, at most, more than 40 Troops working in the entire state at any given shift. I'm sure 600 sounds like a lot of bodies but when you figure in days off, shifts, command, assigned to duties other than patrol, 600 doesn't spread very far in a state with over 47,000 square miles. Working the midnight shift they might only have 10 or 12 for the entire state outside the large population areas. Several years ago when I was working some stuff with NM State Police they didn't have anyone on after 1 AM or 2 AM. If they were needed somewhere then they called someone out from home. In my district which covers 7 counties and 4000 square miles, including the state capitol, my average was 3 to 5 Troops working days and evenings and 2 working mids.

[CityCopDC]

Hey everyone. I work for 911 and I am currently working the noon to midnight shift, and I used to work the 6PM to 6AM shift. Now before I go any further I do not want you to think I am bashing, because I am not. I have 150% respect for Law Enforcement, heck I work with LE everyday. Anyways...

Whenever there is a MVC within the "county limits" (because we dispatch both city police and county sheriff and I-20 runs through both) we also have to call the highway patrol to respond. 90% of the time they get there quickly, and sometimes a trooper will hear the dispatch on the radio and respond that way. Otherwise we have to call their dispatch center and then they call out the trooper. Here is my question....

Sometimes the nearest trooper is 45 mins or more away. Or the nearest trooper is on a felony traffic stop and cannot respond for the next few hours. But according to the highway patrol they have something like 600 troopers (if I am not mistaken which I might be). So if there is that many than why is it sometimes take so long for a trooper to arrive? And why is their such a lack of troopers on the interstate at night? During the day when I am driving I-20 I will see them everywhere. But I can go several nights and not see any. I was just wondering why this was because it seems you would need more troopers available.

Again, I have the upmost respect for the highway patrol. They are excellent officers. I was trying to understand this better since I am in contact with them while at work.

Thanks everyone, stay safe.

First off, I am not a State Trooper but I do know a little about what you are referring to. If the State Police have 600 troopers, thats for the ENTIRE state, with ATLEAST 2 different shifts. So slice that number in half comes to 300. You also have to take into account days off, sick leave, annual leave, light duty. Now lets look at calls for service. The calls for service will obviously be much more during the day and evening, not including inclement weather (more accidents happen) and rush hour. That number of 300 can EASILY be slapped down to 100-120. You also have to take into account that sometimes troopers are responsible for several counties . So if 2 troopers are working a specific county and you have an accident on a state highway or a fatality, guess who may be a lil late? Im sure some of the troopers on this forum can explain it better. :)

[L-1]

I know absolute nothing about your state or MSP, but I did some quick calculations. In large agencies, usually around 25% of their personnel are assigned to administrative or non-patrol duties. With 600 MSP troopers, that leaves you 450. Assuming they work eight hour days, get two days off per week, get a reasonable number of days off for holidays, vacation, training, military leave, sick leave, etc, each trooper probably only works 228 days per year (that's the average for many agencies). Multiply that times 450 troopers, divide it by 365 days per year and then divide by three shifts and you only have 93.69 troopers on patrol at any given time for the entire state. Mississippi is 48,343 square miles, which gives you one trooper for every 489 square miles per shift. That's not a lot.

Now, before everyone jumps on me, I realize that personnel are not evenly distributed this way. More personnel are assigned to densely populated areas than to rural areas. Some rural areas only have a resident officer and have no patrol coverage at all during certain hours. Graveyard usually gets significantly less staffing than swings and days. In HPs, holidays are usually maximum deployment periods. Peak commute hours in densely populated areas get larger deployments than non commute hours, etc. But my whole point is, 600 officers isn't a lot for a statewide agency and when you factor in all the considerations in deploying officers, it's not unusual for there to be a delay in responding if the local beat car is already tied up.

[SgtCHP]

Service coverage for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year minus days off, vacations, sick leave, medical leave, training, special assignments, administrative duties, etc leaves very few officers/troopers available to cover every square mile of the state with only a few minutes response time. Just take a look at your own agency and its deployment. The problem you are questioning is a problem in every state in the nation. Too much activity and not enough officers.

[creolecop]

not to mention aside from all the above mentioned things. If they are along the lines of our Louisiana State Police, Patrol division is the smallest division among them.

[t150vsuptpr]

Does that 600 mean all sworn personel, or is that really how many troopers Miss. has? Administrators are sworn, like Sgts and above, but rarely answer calls ... more rare as you climb the ladder so that Lt.s and above don't answer calls at all unless they just come out on a serious incident.

Not sure how Mississippi breaks down a day, but just to use my area here as an example, we have three Sgts, a first Sgt., 26 troopers between two counties, normally (we often have a couple vacancies within the area). My county has 13 of those normally. We work 1 man on midnights, 7 nights at a time, it rotates down through the schedule so that each 13 weeks, it rolls around again. 12 men remain to work two shifts and allow for days off and holidays and annual leave and comp leave and then because we have a k-9 and two tac team members who seem to spend a lot of time training, call outs, etc. Day shift also is when guys have 1 or 2 days a month in general district court, maybe a day in circuit court for appeals, and a juvenile date.

Bottom line, normally we end up with two or maybe three working day ( one 6a-2p & one 7a-3p) shift or evening (3p-11p) and sometimes when a lot have gotten appeals, day shift will see 4 or 5 working, but that evening a man may be alone 3p-11p.

We have 105 counties or there abouts as I recall. The department's authorized strength was 2,462, with 1,494 sworn personnel in 1998, that included all investigators and their side of the administration and the uniform, all administrators, Sgts., 1st Sgts., Lts., Captains, Majors, Lt. Cols., the Col., etc, only somewhere around 800-850 were troopers. It's not much different today. Some counties where population is scarce have 3 or 5 troopers.



If it get's to be too long of a wait, maybe the county residents will speak up and the Sheriff will see fit to hire a few extra deputies and get them trained in accident investigation?

[PhilipCal]

The Alabama Dept of Public Safety has approximately 400 Arresting Officers. We have 67 counties, thirteen Highway Patrol Posts manned by seven lettered Troops. No Post that I know of covers any less than four counties. Average county coverage per post is 5.15 We have the same situation of having Arresting Officers on Administrative, Protective, or other mandated duties. Currently, during the average week only four counties in the state have 24 hr Trooper coverage. Should an accident or incident occur during say. 2200-0600 HRS in the effected counties, an on-call Trooper would respond from his home. This situation is not unique to Alabama, but unfortunately seems fairly common nationwide. Recently, we have conducted several well publicized "Take Back our Highways" campaigns. In these instances, we do get administrative personnel out on the road, and many, many citations are issued. Day to day though, we run pretty thin.