Desperate for officers, a Georgia police chief hits the road
Before he became chief of the Floyd County Police Department last December, Mark Wallace investigated a murder where a man killed his elderly neighbors “just to get himself out of hock.”
Recently, a 911 call from the other side of the spectrum reached Chief Wallace’s dispatcher: a mom requesting an officer to talk to her 7-year-old, who refused to go to school.
Decent pay, sometimes quirky but always critical work, and keys to a take-home cruiser are among the perks to being a Floyd County Police Department officer – 53 deputized men and women patrolling 500 square miles of Appalachian highlands.
Cons include dropping $85 on a new pair of trousers every few months to replace those torn by briars. “The woods are where the bad guys tend to hide,” says Wallace, a 38-year-veteran.
It is all part of the excitement here on the cusp of Mayberry and “CSI.”
Like thousands of small-town and big-city police chiefs across the US, Wallace says his biggest challenge isn’t busting counterfeiters or conducting manhunts – at least not of the traditional sort.
While trying to fill 10 open officer positions, Wallace had 12 decent prospects. Two showed up for the test. One
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