SEARCY, Ark – The Searcy Police Department is making a call for more officers as violence makes its way into the city and surrounding areas.

The request comes more than a month after police were called out to multiple shootings that occurred within 30 minutes of each other.

“It was a perfect storm, happened all at one time,” Searcy Police Chief Steve Hernandez said

“I heard these pow, pow, pow, pow shots,” Searcy resident Avonna Hendrix said.

FOX 16 News crews captured video of the incident that day, documenting bullet holes through windows and cars.

“The bad part of that was everybody thought we had a madman on the loose,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez says he had anywhere from 5 to 7 officers on duty that night.

A normal amount of staff for the day-to-day calls suddenly became short.

“It was an instant thing to call off duty officers in,” Hernandez said.

By the end of the night, Hernandez said he had about 20 officers working.

“To already have those officers on duty at the time instead of having to wait for them to respond obviously would be helpful,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez is asking the city for five additional officers to help with unexpected workload.

“It’s kind of like car insurance, you may not need that many officers on at one time all the time but if something large scale would happen it’s nice to have them around,” Hernandez said.

The officer positions now must be approved through the Mayor and City Council. There has been no word on when that vote will happen.