Police Recruits Rising In Montgomery County
HORSHAM TOWNSHIP, PA —Michael E. Pitkow has seen it all during a law enforcement career that has spanned decades.
During his keynote address at the 26th annual Project Blue Light ceremony earlier in December, Pitkow remembered Montgomery County’s 29 fallen police officers killed in the line of duty and stressed that gun violence is far from over.
“Gun violence is happening in suburban areas, not just cities,” said Pitkow, Springfield Township’s police chief and president of the Montgomery County Police Chiefs Association.
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But while that may be the case, Pitkow said that police officer deaths have fallen nationally since a spike in 2016.
And while police departments in Montgomery County and the Philadelphia region see their longtime police officers dwindle due to retirement, Pitkow is now hopeful that new recruits are filling those slots.
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“There’s been an increase in police retirements and it was very difficult to attract new recruits,” he said in the keynote address.
Pitkow said that a recent Montgomery County Police Academy class graduated 24 cadets and that the next class is expected to have 42 cadets.
“We are heading back in the right direction,” Pitkow said.
Pitkow was the keynote speaker at the solemn ceremony that featured representatives from numerous police departments throughout Montgomery County: The Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Skippack, the Abington Township Police Department, the Hatfield Police Department, the Springfield Township Police Department, the Upper Merion Police Department, the Whitpain Township Police Department, the Upper Dublin Township Police Department, and the Upper Gwynedd Police Department, among others.
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