PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — As the Sioux Falls Police Department seeks to add officers to its ranks, a new recruiting campaign is putting local officers’ faces front and center. Evan Larson is a patrol officer with the department, and while residents might spot him out on a motorcycle, he says that’s not all he does.
“I bet 90% of our job is just talking to people, and if you have that, I don’t think it matters where you come from, you can definitely do it,” Larson said.
“That is the majority of our job, is just going out talking with people,” officer Kylie Huemoeller said.
For patrol officer Kylie Huemoeller, the interpersonal component of the job drew her commitment.
“I initially went into criminal justice looking at a forensic side of things, and as I started taking various classes, I liked the people side of things versus the actual science behind various parts of the criminal justice, and so I wanted to be more of a police officer,” Huemoeller said.
Huemoeller and Larson are each part of the Sioux Falls Police Department’s new recruiting campaign which includes a billboard in central Sioux Falls along Minnesota Avenue, where three words might draw a potential applicant’s curiosity: “answer the call.”
“I think what we wanted to make sure is that we highlight our own people within this campaign and not have stock footage of people to fill the roles of officers, so we selected 14 officers from our department,” chief Jon Thum. “Many different career paths, sections of the department.”
Thum says the $100,000 campaign highlights officers in a bid to bring more into the fold; the department currently is 12 officers short of its authorized strength of 295.
“We have some criminal justice majors, I’m a business major, we have a philosophy major, a music major, people from all different backgrounds,” Thum said. “We have people who have proven themselves in other work fields, have carried positions of responsibility, and really what we need.”
