Published: June 16, 2009 10:05 am      

Avon graduates first citizen police class

AVON — While the normal citizen only gets a small perspective of police life, eight local citizens have been living it for the past 10 weeks.

The Avon Police Department recently held a graduation ceremony for its first ever Citizen’s Police Academy.

“I think that all of us were just concerned citizens who just wanted to learn more about what the rules and responsibilities are of the police department,” said Steve Wissen, one of the class graduates. “We wanted to find out what they do on a day to day basis.”

Sgt. Jeff Lewis, the special projects coordinator for the Avon Police Department, said the class was a huge success.

“Based on (the students’) response, it went really well,” Lewis said. “They all enjoyed it and this group in particular was a perfect group to start it with. They asked all the right questions, had all the right comments, and were just very pleasant to be around.”

Lewis thought that a small class would be best for the initial run. He was able to limit the number to eight graduates.

“We opted for a smaller class this time around,” Lewis said. “We were trying to keep the number of students to instructor ratio down.”

The course was designed to be more hands on for the students, to give them a similar experience of a real police officer.

“We basically put them through the same kind of training that we go through, in an abbreviated version of it,” Lewis said. “We couldn’t obviously get in depth. We tried to give them as much hands-on things as we could and keep them out of the classroom, so it wasn’t lectures and stuff.”

The class included a skills course for driving the police car; physical tactics; a taser night, where three members volunteered for the taser hit; firearms training, where they used simulation in a paintball situation; and finished up with a room scenario, where they were dispatched and had to calm things down at a scene.

“It was a real eye opener to them as to how quick you have to make a decision as a police officer,” Lewis said, “as opposed to being armchair quarterbacked by people years after the fact because you walked into a place and had to use your weapon.”

Lewis said that they tried to make it interesting.

“The few times that we did have lectures, we had our investigation division reviewing cases,” he said. “Showing them the evidence and how it all pieced together.”

The class concluded with a ride-along on the street with an on-duty officer.

Wissen, who has previously been a full-time firefighter and medic in Plainfield, said he thought the class was a valuable experience.

“I think that this has been an awesome experience,” he said. “All of the other people in the class have conveyed the same feeling that it was very well worth while. It was well thought out before they started the training. All of the officers that took part in training us in various segments of the course were very knowledgeable and very respectful to us.”

The experience encouraged Wissen to pursue an opportunity within the police department.

“They asked me if I would like to be the new day shift community officer,” Wissen said. “I won’t carry a gun or anything, but I will respond to lockouts, small accidents in parking lots, and things of that nature.”

Mary Dugan was the lone female in the graduating class.

“Women need to get more involved in the community,” she said. “They need to get to know their police officers. I think that it is important to know the people that you expect to come to your aid.”

Dugan said the most valuable tool that she got from the class was clearing up misconceptions attached to police officers.

Following the success of the first class, Lewis announced that the class is going to be an annual event, budget permitting.

“We found, as far as public relations and really getting everybody to understand what our police department is about, this is money well spent,” Lewis said.

With the success of the first class, Lewis does not anticipate making many adjustments to the course.

“We’ll be tweaking a few things,” Lewis said. “Whether it was the luck of the draw, or just drawing the right people in the department who have enough experience, we didn’t have to change a whole lot.”



ryan.palencer@flyergroup.com