Steve Pokin

SPOKIN@NEWS-LEADER.COM

The Springfield Police Department has 305 sworn officers, and only two are black.

The Greene County Sheriff's Department has 60 officers on patrol. Only one is black.

In terms of inclusion, the numbers show the lack of diversity in the two departments -- especially regarding blacks -- and the difficulties law enforcement agencies can face in finding and hiring minorities.

Across the U.S., since events in Ferguson, greater scrutiny has been focused on the racial makeup of city and county police departments.

In interviews this week, Police Chief Paul Williams said his department is actively recruiting minority officers, including women. On the other hand, Sheriff Jim Arnott told the newspaper his department makes no special effort to recruit minorities and women and relies on what he believes to be the best and fairest practice: "The best candidate is the one who gets hired."

In fact, Arnott said, having only one black patrol officer out of 60 is probably reflective of the racial makeup of the 90,000 residents his department serves who do not live in cities that have their own police departments. The overall black population for Greene County -- including the major cities -- was estimated by the Census Bureau at 3.2 percent in 2013.

Arnott said his department cannot afford to hire a recruiter and has difficulty attracting candidates — regardless of race and gender — because of low pay.

"We use social media and go to the job fairs that we are able to drive to," Arnott said.

When Williams came to Springfield as chief in 2010 there weren't any black officers on the city's force. He said it is not easy to attract and hire minorities.

"It is hard to recruit people to a profession that historically — in terms of race and gender — they have not gone into," Williams said. "Until the most recent generation, police work has been viewed by women and minorities as something that's not for them."

As a result, there aren't that many role models for minorities, Williams said, particularly in Springfield, which is one of the whitest cities in America.

"If you are a young African American high school or college student and you are looking for a role model in policing in Springfield it is very hard to find one," he said.

His department often competes for minority candidates with larger forces in Kansas City and St. Louis that pay more, as well as private-sector companies in search of minority applicants with a college degree or some college.

Nevertheless, Williams said, he is working to improve minority representation on the force.

"It's my job to make sure we are opening that up," he said.

Williams said he wants the department to at least come close to mirroring the racial makeup of the city. According to the 2010 Census, Williams said, the black population of the city was 3.7 percent. The two black officers — brothers Jeremiah Lockett, 29, and Jerome Lockett, 28 — represent 0.6 percent of the force, not including non-sworn administrative staff.

The department has a recruitment officer, Williams said, who attends job fairs across the state and nation.

In addition, there are events like the one Monday night. At the suggestion of Memo Latapi, editor of Springfield's Spanish newspaper, Springfield police set up a table at a late-night indoor soccer tournament attended mostly by Hispanics. The goal was to strengthen the connection between police and the Hispanic community, Latapa said, and to attract Hispanic candidates to the force.

The department has 10 Hispanic officers, which is 3.1 percent of the force. The city's Hispanic population was 3.4 percent in 2010.

The department routinely asks the Lockett brothers to recruit at black events in the city such as Park Day in Silver Springs Park.

In addition to adding black officers, Williams said, there is a need for female officers. The department has 21 female officers. Nationally, the average female representation in law enforcement is 13 percent. It's 7.7 percent in Springfield.

'Best candidate'

Arnott, the sheriff, said his department hires "the best candidate" and puts no special emphasis on making the department more inclusive.

"It's probably not the politically correct answer," he said. "I don't consider race and gender when we are looking at a candidate. The best candidate is the one who gets hired. I think we treat everybody equal."

For this story, the News-Leader focused on the racial makeup of the county's 60 patrol officers. These deputies are in direct contact with the public. Approximately 150 department employees work at the county jail; some are sworn deputies like the ones on patrol while others are corrections workers.

Arnott said the racial makeup of those working in the jail is more diverse than the makeup of the patrol division.

One black patrol officer among 60 equals 1.6 percent. Arnott said the department has two female and two Hispanic patrol officers. There are four female detectives, as well.

Arnott said the overarching issue for attracting and hiring deputies is pay. For years the starting salary of a Greene County deputy, who must pay thousands of dollars to attend a policy academy, was $14.52 an hour, or $30,200 annually, Arnott said.

For the first time in six years, county employees in October received a 3 percent cost-of-living pay hike. A starting deputy now makes $31,117 annually.

"You have got to have something that somebody wants to come to," Arnott said. "That is an excuse, but that is also the reality."

The starting salary at the city for an officer straight out the academy is $16.43 an hour. The starting pay for officers coming to Springfield from other departments is $17.27 to $22.20 per hour.

In addition to low pay, Arnott said, the attraction of law enforcement as a career has diminished as a result of events in Ferguson, where protests and a few riots erupted nationally after a white police officer was not charged in the shooting death of an unarmed 18-year-old black man. He said a deputy who recently resigned mentioned that as one of his reasons for leaving.

"There is a nationwide trend against law enforcement whether you are right or wrong," he said. "That is tough to overcome for those of us who are trying to attract people to try to do this job."

Cheryl Clay, president of the Springfield Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said she appreciates the city's efforts to attempt to diversify its police force. She believes the county should be doing more than simply "hiring the best candidate." It also needs to try to expand the pool of candidates to include minorities and women, she said.

"Hiring the best candidate is no longer relevant in this day and age," she said. "To me, that means you are going out to hear from the same pool of candidates that you have always heard from."

Clay said she has an annual talk with Williams regarding race and policing. She said she intends to have a similar talk with Arnott in the coming year.

"I do not want to throw him under the bus — just yet," Clay said. "I am not a very unbiased source on Greene County. I have a lot of reservations and hesitations about their hiring practices."

'I needed a job'

Jeremiah Lockett joined the Springfield Police Department four years ago. Jerome Lockett was hired three years ago.

"I needed a job," said Jeremiah, who graduated from Central High in 2003 and has an anthropology degree from Missouri State University.

This is his first job in law enforcement. He had been working in the Bass Pro warehouse. He is married with five children.

"I have a degree. I have college loans and I had to find some way to pay for that," he said.

He said that being black is neither a major help nor a major hindrance in his job. But it does come up.

One call he responded to involved a white woman and a black family next door, he said. The white woman called police because the neighboring black children were on her property.

"I show up and the black mother says, 'Oh, I'm so glad there is a black cop.' And I thought, 'Just because I'm black, what do you think I'm going to do different than a white officer?' "

Then, as Lockett was trying to diffuse the situation, the white woman's husband took offense to Lockett offering suggestions on how to resolve the matter.

"He interrupted me and said that he had a master's degree," Lockett said. "I was kind of upset. But I was with a white officer on the call. And he said, 'I have a doctorate. What does that have to do with anything?' I appreciated that."

Yes, Lockett said, he would recommend a career in law enforcement to a young black male or female.

"It's a good job," he said. "It's an experience."