TEMPLE, Texas — The City of Temple has recently announced a new plan to pour more funding into its Police Department. The plan will be implemented between fiscal years 2023 through 2028. According to a post by the police departments facebook page, the goal is to enhance officers efforts to protect and serve the community as the city continues to grow.
Allen Teston, the Administrative Deputy Chief for Temple PD said, "City of Temple is growing rapidly. Over the coming years, as we add more staff, we're going to move from an eight district patrol scheme that we're currently on, to a ten district patrol scheme."
Teston said over the next six years the department will introduce new technonogy, new hires within the department, and improve the training facility. Shorter shifts for patrol will drop to 10 hours instead for 12 hours as they add more staffing.
"That's more investigators to the department, and also in our community police services. We're big on community engagement, and trying to interact more more with our community in a positive way," Teston said.
In total the city will invest $35 million into the police department, Temple Fire and Rescue projects.
"I'm all for adding cameras. I'm all for, you know, adding a high-tech device that can detect a gunshot within a mile radius, we need that. I'm all for adding 40 police officers, we need that, but they're not doing that for the black and brown community. They're doing that because that's part of their gentrification plan," said Patrick Arryn.
Arryn is the creator of Change is Here, an organization he founded in the wake of the TPD shooting death of Michael Dean. Even before that incident, Arryn said TPD has not been active and transparent in the community.
Arryn said, "I'm almost in tears because there's, there's been no transparency, and as a 31 year old black man who has a little girl, I still don't trust my community. I definitely don't trust our city officials."
Arryn said this funding being poured into the police department is not for the right reasons.
"Now that I'm seeing the City of Temple, be rejuvenated, be restored, it's only because you're planning on bringing a different demographic, and a different race of people in that area is frustrating. It's heartbreaking," said Arryn. "I was wondering where this was when i was a kid."
Teston said TPD remains comitted to serving all Texans who call Temple home.
"We've see that coming out of the Michal Dean situation. We have been very proactive in the past few years, realizing that we need to engage more with our citizens. We think that relationships matter," Teston said.
Teston said the department will continue to host community events and connect with the community.
The six year plan will also expand and remodel the animal services building.
