Warren, Austintown, get grants to hire officers

Staff report

The Austintown and Warren police departments will each receive $250,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice to hire more officers.

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Steven M. Dettelbach made the announcement. Each department is planning on bringing on two additional officers, Dettelbach said in a news release Friday.

The Youngstown Police Department also will receive some federal money from a pool of $500,000 being made available to the Northern Ohio Violent Crime Consortium. This will help pay for data analysts and technology, to assist them in intelligence-led police efforts; or the use of computer data, such as mapping and report analyzing, to help fight crime.

The NOVCC is made up of the eight largest police departments in Northern Ohio: Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Elyria, Lorain, Mansfield, Toledo and Youngstown.

The grants awarded to Austintown and Warren were part of the Community Oriented Policing program, or COPS grants.

A total of eight departments in Northern Ohio were awarded COPS grants for new officers: Akron, Canton, Cleveland, the Cuyahoga County Housing Authority, Lima, Mansfield and Toledo are the other departments that will be able to hire new officers.

Austintown police Chief Bob Gavalier did not return a message seeking a comment. Warren Safety Service Director Enzo Cantalamessa said the money the city was awarded is good for hiring two school resource officers.

However, since the department already has two school resource officers, Warren instead will use that money to pay for the present resource officers, which will free up money to hire two officers, Cantalamessa said.

He said a new civil-service test will have to be given for that to happen, which pushes the timetable for adding those two officers to early next year.