Coronavirus: Fort Worth police down 224 employees, including 188 officers

A total of 224 Fort Worth police employees have been reportedly quarantined as of Saturday, January 16, over fears of being exposed to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Per figures from the department, the staff quarantined includes 188 uniformed officers, a sizable chunk of the force’s roughly 1,700 officers.

As carried in an article by 'fortworth star telegram', there were a recorded 143 positive cases among employees, affecting 116 officers — from patrol officers to lieutenants — along with 26 civilians and a single recruit, police said. The other 81 police employees in quarantine were either exposed to someone with the coronavirus or awaiting test results. Nine were civilians.

 A police spokesman, Officer Tracy Carter, said in an email on Saturday, “We will adjust where we need to.”

“If that calls for asking officers from our specialized units to answer calls for service, then we will do that,” he said. “Adjustments are made daily to help serve the public.

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The spike in unstaffed positions comes almost one month after Chief Ed Kraus caught the coronavirus, and as Tarrant County has been outpacing anywhere else in Texas for new cases.

The department, which is in the middle of a public search for a new chief, is also down around 70 officers in the new year, according to WFAA-TV, a Star-Telegram media partner.

Buddy Calzada, a police spokesman, told the station the department has been granting overtime pay as officers work to fill in for those who can’t work. He noted some officers had been pulled from specialized units but didn’t want to say what those units were.

Police aren’t aware of any isolated outbreaks within specific areas of the department, Calzada told WFAA-TV.