Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger addresses the public during a press conference this week detailing steps city leaders are taking to continue public services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

WHEELING – Officials at the Wheeling Police Department are confident that law enforcement services will continue through the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis, but one of the biggest concerns facing police forces involves maintaining a full complement of officers on staff.

To do so during a widespread pandemic, officers themselves have to remain healthy and able to work.

“We’re not necessarily fearful of the illness itself, but we do have some concerns mostly surrounding staffing,” Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger said this week. “If our membership becomes ill, we don’t want to spreads that, and it depletes our resources internally.”

To complicate matters, the plausible threat of officers actually contracting the coronavirus and having to be quarantined is not the only challenge police departments face with staffing.

“The state police academy closed last week, so all of our officers in training now have been suspended, so to speak,” Schwertfeger said. “We still will do training internally for them, but that does have an impact.

“I’m concerned about military deployments. Many of our members are also members of the military, and they may be activated to address this issue either statewide or even nationwide.”

This Saturday, the Wheeling Police Department had scheduled a police officer assessment and testing for candidates seeking employment on the force.

“We have vacancies, and we need to fill those vacancies,” the chief said. “Obviously we have had to suspend that test. There will not be a police assessment this Saturday. This may be the first time that our 90-plus applicants may be hearing this.”

The test has tentatively been moved to April 18.

Schwertfeger said the police force must continue to monitor the situation surrounding the numbers of available officers on the force.

“All those things affect staffing,” he said. “Much like any weather-related crisis or any crisis for that matter, we will adapt. We will overcome, and if we have to resort to adaptive shift changes like 12-hour shifts, for example, we will certainly do that.”

As daily lives and routines of everyone in the community drastically change in preparation of the pandemic’s looming wave of infections, Schwertfeger said he expects the nature of crimes will begin to change with it.

“I’m sure of it, because I’ve been around long enough to know, that we will begin to see COVID-related crimes,” he said. “There will be scams. There will be price gouging. There may even be personal attacks on law enforcement by someone who either believes or wants you to believe that they have this virus, and they will spit on you, and all of that.”

The police chief acknowledged that the pandemic response if a fluid situation and changes daily, but he said the police department remains committed to providing law enforcement services when and where they are essential. That includes the temporary mobile testing site outside Wheeling Park’s White Palace, he said.

“We will certainly be there and assist to make sure that goes smoothly,” Schwertfeger said.

Updates about potential scams and other important developments will be posted on the Wheeling Police Department’s social media pages, according to the chief.

“I want to personally thank first responders, as well as all of the other essential employees in the city of Wheeling,” Schwertfeger said. “Your commitment and courage during these difficult times is unprecedented, and it’s why I do this job and want to work with you.”

The police chief said he wanted to remind everyone in the city that as citizens of America, West Virginia and the Ohio Valley, the community is tough enough to weather this crisis if everyone works together.

“We are resilient, and we will overcome this like we do everything else,” he said.