{"id":41078,"date":"2026-10-12T17:02:43","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=41078"},"modified":"2026-10-12T17:02:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:02:45","slug":"decatur-pd-in-hiring-process-2-join-full-time-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/12\/decatur-pd-in-hiring-process-2-join-full-time-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur PD in hiring process; 2 join full-time force"},"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\">The Decatur Police Department has nine applicants for a newly-created position, Police Chief Kevin Gerber told the city&#8217;s board of works and safety at its latest meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of an original number of 13, the nine were scheduled for agility testing on Oct. 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The eventual new hire \u2013 the entire process takes four to six months, according to the chief \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<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"280\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?resize=640%2C280&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29291\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?resize=1024%2C448&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?resize=300%2C131&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?resize=768%2C336&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?resize=1536%2C672&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?w=2004&amp;ssl=1 2004w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">City council last September approved adding another officer to the force.<\/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\">OFF PROBATION: A firefighter and a police officer in Decatur&#8217;s ranks have been removed from their one-year probationary status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Firefighter Preston Bemus and police officer Conrad Dyer are now official members of their respective departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The removal of the probationary tags was recently approved by the city&#8217;s board of works and safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The board also approved Certificate of Appointments for the newest members of fire department&#8217;s career (full-time) staff: Maddux Hillery and Ben Walter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hillery had been on the paid-on-call staff, so his resignation from that post opens a position for a new hire there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com The Decatur Police Department has nine applicants for a newly-created position, Police Chief Kevin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25747,"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-41078","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\/04\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?fit=2004%2C885&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41078","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41079,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41078\/revisions\/41079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}