Sheriff wants more applicants for deputy
Shelby County may ease residency requirement
After a meeting in Frayser on Thursday, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner says the law enforcement agency is hoping to expand the pool of its recruited personnel.
In Bonner’s 639-staffed sheriff ’s department, there are 59 openings, he said Thursday during a Frayser Exchange meeting at Impact Baptist Church.
As of now, the sheriff ’s department policy requires deputies to live in Shelby County.
But Bonner said he wants that policy to be relaxed to bring in a larger pool of applicants.
“We are finding that our pool of applicants is not as large as we would like it to be. We think relaxing the residency requirement would just allow us to have a bigger pool of applicants, and that is just all we are looking for,” Bonner said.
Bonner said that even if an applicant lives in Tipton County, for example, that person is still able to understand the dynamics of Shelby County and parts of Memphis.
Memphis police announced last week the agency is also looking to expand its recruitment pool outside of the city.
MPD Director Mike Rallings, who was the guest speaker at Frayser Exchange last week, said he wants his police force to expand to 2,300 officers by June 2020.
Shelby County Sheriff ’s Department spokesperson Capt. Anthony Buckner says the training component the law agency has will evaluate the applicant’s geographical knowledge of the area.
“We don’t just hire them and turn them loose,” Buckner said. “They