{"id":39463,"date":"2026-09-08T06:12:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=39463"},"modified":"2026-09-08T06:12:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T10:12:35","slug":"decatur-pd-begins-process-to-add-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/08\/decatur-pd-begins-process-to-add-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur PD begins process to add officer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Decatur Police Chief Kevin Gerber has been given permission by the city&#8217;s board of works to begin the hiring process as the police department seeks to beef up its numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A new hire \u2013 the entire process takes four to six months, Gerber told the board \u2013 will bring an additional officer to the department, boosting the ranks to 21, plus Gerber and Deputy Police Chief Derek Loshe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pre-applications are being taken at:&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/decaturinpolice.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">decaturinpolice.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Base pay is $65,470 and there are generous benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Officers also get a take-home vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The department works 12-hour shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhen one day squad is working, the alternate day squad has their days off. The same method for the night squad,\u201d Chief Gerber has said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also next year, two additional sergeants will be added, bringing the total to four, one for each squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trent Busse and Nathan Hunter currently are sergeants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Decatur Police Chief Kevin Gerber has been given permission by the city&#8217;s board of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":29291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-39463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?fit=2004%2C877&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39464,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39463\/revisions\/39464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}