New Hope Police Reserves
+The New Hope Reserve Unit was started in 1963. Captain Todd Schmeltzer and Lieutenant Dave Erklouts are 25 and 10 year veteran Reserve volunteers, respectively. Our unit also consists of 3 Sergeants, 4 Sr. Patrol Officers, 1 Patrol Officer and 7 new Cadets.
In 2009, our unit volunteered over 2,740 hours and as of April 2010 the number of hours is close to 900.
Our unit works regularly scheduled patrol shifts on Friday and Saturday nights.During those shifts, we assist with a variety of call types including Medicals, Accidents, Fires, Transporting Prisoners, Fingerprinting, Tows, Traffic, and any other support our Regular Officers request of us. We also patrol our city's businesses, schools, parks and neighborhoods. Our primary purpose is to assist our regular officers to allow them to get back out on the streets to cover the higher priority calls.
We are available for emergency Call Outs 24 hours a day when needed. We direct traffic and handle security & general safety patrol for a number of events such as our city's Duk Duk Daze Summer Festival, National Night Out, a variety of School Events, and many more. We assist other neighboring communities when requested. All of our Cadets go through a 10 week training program within our unit and then the Hennepin County Sheriff's Reserve School for 10 weeks, followed by 1st Responder training with the Minnesota Emergency Medical Services Regulatory Board. Our unit as a whole continues training throughout the year with such programs as Defensive Tactics, Taser® Certification, St. Cloud Offensive Driving School, Citizens of New Hope.
Shooting Certification and 1st Responder Re-Certification to name a few. We also assist as "Role Players" or "Bad Guys" for our Metro Swat team or special training for Regular Officers such as Active Shooter Scenarios. We even go out for "A Bite" to assist our K9 Officers while they train their partners. Our unit is overseen by The New Hope Police Reserve Officers Board. Chief Gary Link and Captain Dave Rudolph both have greatly supported our efforts and we do our best to give back to the Police Officers, the businesses, the schools and the Citizens of New Hope.