Call to duty thins police ranks

The UW Police Department took a significant hit when four of its members were called to active duty in the Wisconsin Air National Guard shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. They included a lieutenant, a patrol officer and two security officers. So far, only one has returned to the department. Another may be back soon, but world events will dictate the date, says Capt. Dale Burke.

The department was already understaffed and scheduled to begin hiring processes for both police and security officer positions when the call-up came, Burke said.

“Their departure was made even more critical because it occurred at a time when our “normal’ workload pretty much doubled due to increased homeland security concerns.

“Couple that with the fact that the missing lieutenant was in charge of all our hiring processes,” says Burke, “and it’s easy to see how quickly we found ourselves scrambling to adapt and respond with no perceptible change in the quality of our service.”