New Clovis police officer is eager to help the department

With high stress, relatively low wages, a constant risk of dying and a negative societal perception, fewer people locally and nationally are becoming police officers. 

But the way Rylie Courtney, one of four newly sworn Clovis Police Department officers, sees it, the risk is worth the reward. 

“I just like going in and taking somebody on their worst day and trying to do whatever it is I can to help them,” she told The News. 

CPD, which has witnessed a steep decline in applicants partially leading to being understaffed, wants – no, needs – more people like Courtney. 

“Just kind of floundering in the water,” CPD Deputy Police Chief Trevor Thron said, “hoping that something will work eventually.” 

CPD Lt. Lindell Stansell said being understaffed can lead to a host of problems. 

Stansell recalled that when he “took over this position three, four years ago, we were 22 short.” Now, however, they are 13 short. Of the 13 are two detective positions and two officers in training. A full staff is 63 according to Stansell.

Although the numbers have improved, CPD being short-staffed still impacts Clovis residents.

Officers have to work more shifts, which puts them at a greater chance of burnout because it decreases the amount of time to decompress. 

Then, “fewer officers on the street so the officers are more reactive and not as proactive as we would like. Proactivity prevents crime and makes the roads safer,” Stansell said via text. 

Stansell said some of it is related to an increase in potential future officers failing the psychological tests required to eventually become a police officer.

Another reason for the shortage is how police have been perceived by the public in recent years.

Thron said there was a “drastic drop off” in applicants roughly a decade ago and linked it to when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo.

More recently, Stansell said “maybe right around the start of the pandemic” applicant numbers “dropped off.” This could coincide when George Floyd was killed by a Minnesota police officer in May of 2020, leading to a series of protests nationwide.

Struggling to fill a staff isn’t just a Clovis PD problem. According to the Marshall Project, “the number of local law enforcement employees (nationwide) decreased by 4% from 2020 to the first quarter of 2022.” The same article stated that “in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a city of 411,000 with a violent crime rate twice the national average, police officials are struggling to fill 160 vacant officer jobs.”

Thron said what “really hurt our recruitment” is how the media “kind of painted this picture of law enforcement as being corrupt.”

This, of course, is a complex topic. 

Instances of wrongdoing – particularly police brutality when it appears racially motivated – should be reported to hold people of power accountable, police concede.

Furthermore, Thron credited the drop-off to the influx of remote work since the start of COVID-19. When choosing between being in the line of fire or working remotely at a job with the potential to earn the same if not more, many are choosing the latter. 

While there are work incentives to boost salaries, Thron said “we start our recruits at $19.64 an hour. And then once they get out of the academy, our officers jump up to $22.22 an hour.” 

“Nowadays people are like ‘What’s more convenient for me? I’m not out here to serve everybody else,’” said Clovis Chief of Police Roy Rice.

As a way to increase numbers, Thron and CPD recently rolled out a Public Safety Aide (PSA) program. It’s marketed as a way for those with an interest in law enforcement, but aren’t old enough to join (the minimum age is 21) to see if the job’s for them. 

PSA’s have no arresting powers, don’t carry a gun and aren’t called to in-progress crimes, but by virtue of reporting on things like traffic accidents, and being around police officers, PSA’s can see if the profession is for them. 

Since starting it, Thron said, “We’re getting more police officers from the PSA program than we are applicants wanting to apply.”

Courtney should know. She was among the first class of PSAs not long ago before she became an official police officer. Something that her mom Lauren was initially astounded by. 

Courtney, who played the French horn in high school, is first-generation law enforcement. There’s not even a strong military influence. It was a career that was mainly birthed through checking people in at the front desk of a hospital clinic “COVID bubble” roughly a year after graduating from high school.

“Basically, during the shortage of people, the doctors were like, ‘can you room these people? Can you get these vitals on these people?’ So on top of registering people, I was pulling people back, helping the medical assistants and the nurses by doing all that. They’re like, ‘you don’t have to do it,’” she said. 

But to Courtney, she had to help. 

A turning point came when she witnessed someone walk in with a harsh cough and a ghostly face on a Monday. The woman was treated and sent on her way, but returned in a wheelchair two days later – crying – while in the throes of COVID pneumonia. Courtney offered water and tried to find immediate medical attention.

“That broke my heart,” she said, “... I was like I just need to do more. But being … at the front desk, I couldn’t go do more.”

When venting about this urge to do more, a co-worker suggested she join the PSA Program. Courtney, who wasn’t interested in the classroom grind required to be a nurse, enrolled and found it to be her calling. 

Once she turned 21, she went through the months-long process of ride-alongs, training and eventually the physically and mentally taxing process of the police academy before becoming an officer in May. 

While unrelenting in her positivity, Courtney is cognizant of the high stress, long hours, risk of death, inability to make a fortune – plus – the frustrations of being a woman in law enforcement. 

“I’m not always respected. That’s happened several times where they just don’t respect me because I’m a woman and I shouldn’t be in a male-dominated field,” she said.

Thankfully for her, she has proper outlets – fellow officers and family members to vent to, music and video games. She also sees herself using a law enforcement-friendly therapist should she need one.

“You see a lot of things that most people don’t see,” she said. 

Still, despite all the reasons not to become a police officer, Courtney believes this is the career path that’s meant for her. 

“I want to be that voice for those who feel they’re not being heard. And I feel like this job gives me a wonderful opportunity to do that,” she said.

Thron and others from CPD can only hope more follow in Courtney’s footsteps. 

“It’s starting to become a numbers game of, ‘how can we still serve our community but with less? Will we ever get back up to full strength?’” Thron pondered.