In Delmar both sides speak out about police understaffing

DELMAR, Del. – In Delmar, the fallout from Cpl. Keith Heacook’s tragic death is now turning to finger-pointing. The Mayors of both Delmar, Del. and Delmar, Md. both saying to their knowledge no officers were going out alone.

“I thought there was adequate coverage being done,” said Delmar Delaware Mayor Michael Houlihan.

Both Houlihan and Delmar Maryland Mayor Karen Wells claim that when Chief Ivan Barkley Sr. was hired back in 2015,  they had asked him to make sure that officers were safe.

“So I asked for him to look at what he needed and the scheduling and figure out some sort of schedule because I did not feel it was safe to have officers by themselves,” Wells said.

Both Houlihan and Wells say as part of the budget process they ask department heads to tell them what they need. They say if Chief Barkley wasn’t able to adequately staff his shifts, that he should have requested the town add additional positions to the police department in his budget proposals.  But Wells says to her knowledge, not one of Barkley’s proposals has included a request for more officers. The only mention of it came in talks about what his future plans would be.

“He proposed in his five-year plan in 2020 that he would be requesting sometime in the next 5 years officers, a detective, and another part-time PCO, dispatcher,” said Wells.

In response to the allegations 47 ABC, we sat down with Chief Barkley. He admits he never submitted a request for more officers in his budget proposals, but doesn’t buy that the mayors didn’t know the department needed more help.

“I would have difficulty believing that. This situation far exceeds mine. This just didn’t happen with my tenure here at the police department,” Barkley said.

Barkley pointing to a 2016 memo he wrote to the town detailing the dangers of officers responding alone. In that memo, Barkley asked to switch from 10-hour shifts to a “more progressive 12-hour Patrol Schedule” so that they could “come close to our goal of having two officers on each shift.”

He says even though that the town made that change it was known in the town that the goal of getting two officers on each shift still was difficult to reach. Barkley telling the town during a town council meeting as recently as January of this year that current vacancies left the town in a “peculiar spot” and that he was still trying to fill the gaps.

Barkley saying if he was still ‘trying’ the Mayors should have known that there were understaffing issues.

The other issue is Barkley says because of the ongoing collective bargaining problems with the town,  he felt asking for more positions wouldn’t have been realistic.

“If you can’t take care of what you got, I’m asking for more?” Barkley said, adding that he felt his hands were tied.

So we asked the chief what he needed to solve the problems long term. His solution was simple, he needs more bodies.

“What we need number one, fill those positions, number two, we need six additional positions,” Barkley said.

The filling the position problem though, may not be as easy to solve. Barkley said right now their salaries are not competitive enough to attract many applicants. In fact, in the last round of hiring, they had four applicants and only two showed up on test day.  However, with both sides unable to agree in collective bargaining, that is now headed to arbitration putting the salary debate on pause.

But from speaking with both sides it at least seems they made be able to come together because, in the end, it’s what they both want.

“There’s a lot of blame out there, there’s a lot of anger, frustration. But we can’t let that divide us between the town and their police department. We have to unify,” said Houlihan.

In the meantime, Barkley says he’s reached out to their brother and sister agencies to get more help and has staggered some shifts. However, until they reach a resolution in Delmar some officers are still going out alone.

“There’s still periods of time where I only got one guy on,” Barkley said.