No Verona police officers were on the clock when 2 crimes happened
VERONA, Pa. (KDKA) -- A shortage of police officers in a small Allegheny County borough is beginning to cause some concern to residents.
Right now, Verona borough said they have two full-time officers and three part-time officers but confirmed to KDKA-TV it's not enough to be considered as fully staffed.
The borough manager, Stefanie Woolford, said they're working to fill the positions, but until they make more hires, they have to lean on state police to answer the call when they don't have any officers on duty.
That's exactly what happened last month when two crimes happened on the same day, without any local officers on the clock.
"They want to write it off as nothing but it's scary for anyone who lives here," a Verona resident told KDKA-TV.
Allegheny County police said a home invasion happened on April 14 on Maple Street where the victim reported multiple items were stolen. On the same day, Woolford said there was an assault near Cribbs Field.
Both locations are just blocks away from the Verona Police Department.
KDKA-TV asked if there were any Verona officers on the clock when those incidents happened.
"There were not. The state police were on that day," Woolford said.
Woolford said state police in Coraopolis, 30 miles away, will respond when there are no local officers on duty.
"It's a requirement by boroughs that we have police coverage. We are always covered. It may not be the way we would like to be covered. But we are covered," Woolford said. "You know, nobody is, you know, standing out here saying, 'there's no cops.' There are cops 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
Woolford said their police chief was injured last November while responding to a domestic call in the borough. She said shortly after, another officer became ill, lowering their staffing numbers.
"It wasn't the best of all situations. Since then, we're now back up to two full-time officers and three part-time officers. The state (police) is on the schedule less and less each month and we are actually in the process of hiring two new full-time police officers," Woolford said.
She said it's been difficult to hire new officers in their small town of 2,800 people, especially in today's climate.
"Verona is a very small community with a very small tax base. So, we probably don't pay as well as the bigger departments. We are working on trying to increase those benefits and look at pay to make Verona more appetizing," Woolford said.
While they work to hire more officers, some in the community fear for their safety, especially if they have longer response times for state police to arrive, rather than local police just blocks away.
One woman, who didn't want to be identified, told KDKA-TV her daughter lives in the borough and fears for her family's safety.
"She's a single mom with two young kids and she's very concerned and we're scared. She now in the safe has a little pistol because it's scary," the woman said.
"I think I guess the big thing is that we want everybody to know, we are taking this seriously," Woolford said. "It takes a long time to hire. It takes a long time to get candidates to apply for a job. We've had our full-time position open on Indeed, I think since July or August. I think we took it down for a few days because we thought we had figured something out. Then it went right back up in October and has been up ever since. We never ever turn off our part-time officer advertisements, you know, so we're always looking. This is not a lack of us trying to hire. It's just a sign of kind of the times right now for all of us."