NORTH DAKOTA – North Dakota Highway Patrol is adding eight new troopers to their roster, but the state law enforcement agency says they are still short on staffing.
“It’s a big deal for us,” NDHP Captain Bryan Niewind told The Flag. “They’re really needed out there.”
The troopers are graduates from the Law Enforcement Training Academy in Bismarck and are set to start on Monday Oct. 6.
“Eight troopers [equates to] about 10% of our staffing that’s actually out working the road each and every day,” said Niewind.
But the force could still use more.
Listen: NDHP Captain Bryan Niewind on The Flag
Niewind says the department is allotted to have 171 sworn troopers by the state legislature.
Even with the new additions, Niewind says they are still 6 troopers below that number.
“We actually are going through a hiring process right now doing some backgrounds on our next potential candidates who start at the academy in January,” Niewind said.
But those newer troopers wouldn’t be on the job until the summer time 2026.
Niewind says existing NDHP law enforcement members recently completed their annual ‘in service’ week-long training at the academy, which is conducted every September.
‘We have an EV-LC [Electric Vehicle Learning Center] track out there [at the academy] to practice our driving and pursuit intervention techniques,” said Niewind.
“We have some ranges out there that we utilize. We obtained new tasers this year so we’re training with that as well.”
On North Dakota’s new interstate speed limit change from 75 to 80 mph, Niewind says they’re now seeing “more people travelling 90-plus miles per hour” which is becoming “a common speed.”
“We’re trying to curb those behaviors by having troopers out there stationary [to] monitor more traffic out there,” said Niewind.
“We set our troopers up in locations where they can be successful and trying to deter some of those behaviors on our roadways.”
