UMPD hires swell ranks to full strength

by Daniel J. Fitzgibbons, Chronicle staff

he hiring of 10 new officers over the past year has brought the UMass Police up to full strength "for the first time in many years," according to Chief Barbara O'Connor, who officiated at a swearing-in ceremony for the new hires on Oct. 15 at the Mullins Center.

     For a number of years, said O'Connor, UMPD recruited new officers, sent them to the police academy and trained them for campus duties only to have them leave for jobs with other departments and agencies.

     "It seems like we always had a number of vacancies," said O'Connor, who took command of the department a year ago. "So we decided to change our way of thinking. We began hiring fully trained officers from other departments."

     Along with experienced officers plucked from the ranks of the Shutesbury Police Department, the State University of New York, Binghamton police and the U.S. Border Patrol, UMPD also has brought in seven rookies through the traditional recruitment process, which involves testing of applicants and the creation of an eligibility list. From the list, qualified recruits are sent to the Municipal Police Officers Academy in Agawam. After graduation, they complete three months of supervised field training on campus. O'Connor said seven of the 10 new officers are already assigned to shifts and the other three will complete their field training at the end of the month. All told, the department now has 42 police officers plus command staff.

     The formal swearing-in ceremony was attended by family and friends of the new officers as well as their field training officers, according to the chief.

     O'Connor praised the newcomers as "enthusiastic people who come with a broad range of experience and lot of new energy."

     The new officers are Luis Antonmarchi, Michael J. Hawk, Charles L. Moore, Eric M. John-son, Allan Silva, Christopher Stechmann, Damian DeWolf, Timothy Griffin, Jason Minich, and Randy Kershaw.