Crime & Safety
Behind the Badge: JCPD's Citizens Police Academy
Johns Creek residents get hands-on experience at Citizens Police Academy.
One is a married empty-nester with 13 grandchildren between her three grown children.
Another is a retired physicist who worked with the NASA astronaut program.
There are two Vietnam veterans, a retired Georgia Tech professor, a criminal defensive attorney and a martial arts expert.
And, of course, the reporter.
These are just a few personal and professional backgrounds that comprise this diverse group of 21 adult cadets – nine women and 12 men – taking part in the fall 2011 Johns Creek Police Department’s semiannual Citizens Police Academy.
And as an exclusive for Johns Creek Patch, I’ll chronicle our progress here each week in words and pictures as the class progresses toward and finally reaches graduation.
Tuesday’s opening class and Q&A session with JCPD top brass promises an intensive crash course in community policing that will meet each following Tuesday evening at police headquarters for the next eight weeks.
The academy’s goal is to allow Johns Creek citizens age 21 and up who pass a criminal background check an in-depth look at JCPD operations. Classes are capped at 25 cadets.
From K-9 interaction (police dog patrol) to Crime Scene Investigation techniques (CSI), SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics), introduction to “ride alongs,” where class members will ride shotgun with uniform traffic officers on live patrol, academy cadets are going hands-on with field operations and classroom instruction to see what it’s really like to work behind the badge.
“You get out of this what you put in. But it’s not like it’s portrayed in the media or in Hollywood,” forewarned Chief Ed Densmore, a 15-year veteran in law enforcement, who prior to taking the top job with Johns Creek PD in 2008 was a captain and chief in Alpharetta.
Densmore formed the Citizen Police Academy series here shortly after his arrival in Johns Creek as a teaching tool, in hopes the academy would instill a sense of awareness in citizens.
That sense of awareness will in turn help them prevent crimes in their neighborhoods and businesses.
The academy is not intended to encourage anyone to take the law into their own hands or take on dangerous criminals themselves.
Rather, Densmore sees a resource in the community at large as an extra set of eyes and ears for his officers to act upon.
“And the academy just gives people a better understanding of our operation and why we do the things we do,” he said.
JCPD’s current operation includes 61 officers in all divisions serving Johns Creek’s 32-square miles and 76,728 residents, said Maj. John Clifton with the uniform patrol division.
There are seven total patrol zones comprised of 36 officers from the northern end of Johns Creek at McGinnis Ferry Road to the southern periphery along Barnwell Road at the Rivermont subdivision adjacent Chatthoochee NRA’s Jones Bridge Unit.
Zones are framed by roadway boundaries. And while there are a specific number of officers assigned to each zone, a call for back-up guarantees a show of force within minutes. The average call response for JCPD is two minutes, Clifton added.
Clifton stresses accident prevention over aggressive enforcement, although the patrol division will adjust tactics to protect the public.
Since Johns Creek’s incorporation in 2008, vehicle fatalities have dropped considerably for a city its size: In the reporting period 2007-2008 there were nine total fatalities; in 2009: 1 fatality; 2010: zero; and so far in 2011 one vehicle fatality was reported inside a gated community and not on the open road, Clifton said.
There were more than 400 auto accidents reported per month in 2008; that average number has now been reduced to 130.
“So when you see us out there running radar or hear people talking about speed traps, that’s not necessarily the case,” Clifton added. “We target areas where there are the most accidents and where we get the most complaints from the public.”
“There is a lot more to it than driving around, pulling people over and writing tickets,” said Sgt. Debra Kalish, JCPD community relations manager and academy supervisor. “Our main purpose is to keep our citizens safe.”
Cadets on Tuesday were issued grey short sleeve polo-style collared shirts with the Citizens Police Academy emblem on the left front breast. And they’re required to wear them to each class.
Betty Gray of Johns Creek will wear hers with pride.
Gray, a grandmother of 13 from a daughter and her two grown sons, recalls about 10 years ago seeing two Alpharetta police officers in the searing summer heat pushing a broken-down car out of a busy intersection.
The sight of those young men putting themselves at risk to help a stranded motorist and free the roadway struck a chord.
“Those are somebody's little boys out there pushing that car,” thought Gray.
Years later, in 2008, with her motherly instincts still much intact, Gray stopped in to visit a newly minted Johns Creek Police Department as the holidays approached.
She asked the duty officer what the other officers would do for Thanksgiving.
Aside from plates of cookies and other baked sweets, that was about it, Grey recalled the officer’s response.
“Well that’s about to change,” Gray vowed.
Since then, Gray and her neighbors in Cameron Crest Farms subdivision off Buice Road have put together Thanksgiving potluck dinners for the entire JCPD staff, with Gray delivering the turkey and fixings to police headquarters for the past three years.
“I just love to do it,” Gray said. “And I’m so grateful to our police officers for the job they do. Now that I’m in the class I’ll get a real idea of what these men and woman go through every day – not just on Thanksgiving.”
Check back in to Johns Creek Patch next week to see where the class goes next.
For more information about the Johns Creek Police Department’s Ciizen Police Academy, contact Sgt. Debra Kalish in Community Services at 678-474-1587.
You can also visit:
www.facebook.com/pages/Johns-Creek-Police-Department
www.johnscreekga.gov/services/police/