Kabat looking to bolster police force

Shootings the last two weeks have public calling for help

In the wake of two weekends full of shootings in La Crosse, there have been repeated calls for more police on the street. 

Mayor Tim Kabat is listening and already on it. Kabat said, even before the southside shootings led to two wounded and one death, he was working out ways to extend beat cop shifts to 12 hours and add another two neighborhood response officers to the payroll. 

Kabat believes those two moves alone would add potentially several officers to the street at any given time of the day. But 12-hour shifts will have to be negotiated with the police union. Those talks, he says, have already started.