Hazel Crest cops met COVID's challenges head-on; 'They came to work, did their jobs, adapted,' chief says

Police departments did not have the luxury of shutting down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There was no way for us to take time to evaluate," Hazel Crest Police Chief Mitchell Davis told The Suburban Marquee. "The virus hit, and the world was turned upside down. We had to respond and change as best we could on the fly. This is something that's never happened before, so you know we really didn't have a measuring stick or something to compare it with, so we just had to make adjustments as best we could, tweaking things as we go."

In the early days of the pandemic, the department implemented as many safety measures as it could, including personal protective equipment for officers, the chief said.

"We minimized our in-person responses," he said. "And some of those things will end up remaining that way."

COVID-19 altered the way the department responded to calls, Davis said.

"We would automatically go to a person's home to deal with those circumstances," to handle calls before the pandemic hit, Davis said. "We changed that. If it was something that could be dealt with via phone instead of getting that information in person, we would call them back and get the information, or we would request for them to come into the police station to give the information."

At the station, the department set up stations with partitions for citizens who were making reports. Simultaneously, the department was tasked with enforcing government COVID-19 mandates such as how many customers were allowed in a business and the hours the companies could be open.

"Those are things we have never had to deal with before," Davis said.

Forcing people to stay at home also led to an increase in calls, the chief said. Another new duty officers have now is to disinfect their squad cars at the beginning of every shift.

"If you are transporting a prisoner, you have to make sure the prisoner has a mask on," he said.

Despite the increased challenges, officers have fared well, Davis said.

"Their resilience just reinforced what I already knew about how great our first responders are," he said. "We couldn't stay at home. When everything was shut down, we had to come to work. And we had to go to people's houses, walking into the unknown. Officers came to work. They did their jobs. We adapted."