Behind The Badge: Citizens Police Academy Graduates

Nine weeks ago Betty Gray received her official Citizens Police Academy collared logo shirt and a three-ring binder outlining course procedures and cadet expectations.  

This past Tuesday evening, Gray, a retiree with 13 grandchildren, along with 20 of her fellow cadets from various walks of life, received crisp, glossy diplomas in place of their notebooks for graduating Johns Creek Police department’s intensive and interactive course that ran the gamut on all aspects of police tactics and operations.

“Wow. This is really special,” said Gray, who, with the help from volunteers in the Cameron Crest Farms subdivision, has for the past several years served a Thanksgiving Day spread at Johns Creek Police headquarters for personnel working the holiday shift.

“What a great program and what a great bunch of people here running it,” Gray added before cutting the ceremonial “Congratulations” cake with red, white and blue colored icing and then serving it to cadets and course instructors.

The semiannual academy accepts cadets age 21 and up who reside in Johns Creek and can pass a background check. It’s budgeted from JCPD’s general fund and class sizes have been capped at around 25.

Requirements are straightforward: Show up and show up on time. And ask as many questions as you like no matter how silly they may seem.

Cadets were taught police procedure on Tuesday evenings in Johns Creek Municipal Court that subbed as a classroom. They also were assigned “ride alongs” where they rode live with patrol officers during part of their shift.

One weekly session featured various interactive patrol car arrest scenarios while the motorcycle unit performed obstacle course maneuvers inside JCPD’s cordoned parking lot. Cadets on that same night got to unoficially shoot a laser speed detection gun at cars driving down Johns Creek Parkway and tour the inside of the department’s mobile DUI lab.

A field trip took cadets over to Sandy Springs Gun Club and Range where they were treated to a session on the same audio and video simulator police officers use to train for deadly force shooting scenarios. And another field trip gave cadets a glimpse into north metro Atlanta’s new 9-1-1 call center, also in Sandy Springs.

“Their passion for community policing, that was the biggest thing for me,” said JCPD academy graduate Kirk Canaday, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam and worked overseas as a defense contractor prior to his retirement and new second career taking care of his grandchildren.

But it was an attempted kidnapping of his daughter years ago at a shopping mall in Maryland that made Canaday more aware of how effective well-trained law enforcement officers and their reaction time can circumvent potentially disaterous situations. “You have to respect these folks on the job here. And their work ethic, it comes from the top down,” added Canaday, who lives in the Haydens Walk subdivision off Old Alabama Road.  

The citizens academy isn’t intended to encourage participants to take the law into their own hands or take on dangerous criminals. Rather, it serves to promote a sense of awareness in participants, to be more mindful of their surroundings, which then serves as an extra set of eyes and ears for JCPD to rely upon.

Policing is an often thankless and a largely solitary job; officers work various shifts and are constantly on the move in their patrol car “offices” and away from police headquarters. Working long hours and holidays are a fact of life and can take a toll on officers in committed relationships or those with children at home.

And police officers are on call 24 hours a day should an emergency arise outside their regular shifts. So the academy focuses on public consensus of what life is really like behind the badge; not the slam-bang T.J. Hooker glam job depicted in movies or on TV.

“This course really helps us get the word out to Johns Creek residents about what we do here and why we do it,” said JCPD community services Sergeant Debra Kalish, who’s been with the department since its 2008 inception.

Along with the Citizens Police Academy, Sgt. Kalish oversees JCPD’s community outreach programs, including a training course called radKids that teaches children ages 7 through 12 fight and flight techniques to escape from would-be kidnappers. She also spearheads the department’s physical and fiscal support of Special Olympics Georgia, part of JCPD's annual participation in the non-profit's Law Enforcement Torch Run, which raises money each year to serve more than 23,000 intellectually disabled children and adults across the state.

But apart from Tuesday’s festivities, the past couple weeks leading up to graduation have been fast and furious ones for the fall 2011 and final academy class of the year comprised of 12 men and nine women.

Weeks seven and eight featured a host of police administration and patrol officer presentations who round out JCPD’s expert staffing and tactical capabilities, including recruitment; field training; Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT); hand-to-hand combat tactics and physical compliance techniques; and a live K-9 patrol attack demonstration.

Lieutenant Chris Byers, who oversees JCPD’s professional standards unit with the hiring - and firing - of police officers,  9-1-1 dispatchers and other sworn and non-sworn positions within the police department’s employment roster, gave cadets an idea of what it takes to make the cut.

Lt. Byers unit also oversees internal affairs investigations and processes internal and external complaints within and against the department.

Last week he was featured on local television news about a Johns Creek missing persons case.  

To get an idea of what it takes to make JCPD’s patrol squad, Lt. Byers’ unit processed 462 applications in 2010; only 65 made the initial cut and then only a small percentage of that group advanced to the final round, he said.  
It’s a pass or fail proposition consisting of extensive written aptitude tests, a logic counterpart and minimum physical agility battery. There are also myriad background and psychological tests patrol candidates must hurdle.

Lt. Byers’ unit employs traditional background checks, including credit score verification and high school and college transcript verification.

“We’ll even go to someone’s grade school and ask around if we have to to check them out,” Lt. Byers half joked.

But with the advent of online social media channels, Lt. Byers focuses special attention to interactive sites like Facebook and Twitter because of their user-driven and open discussion capabilities.

“Anything I can get, any kind of information that’s out there about someone, I’ll get,” Lt. Byers insisted. “But it’s a different world serving as a police officer. That I can tell you what you can and can’t do off duty when I’m not paying you? It’s a total around-the-clock commitment. And especially as a Johns Creek police officer. We hold a higher standard here. And if that’s not what you’re looking for then we don’t want you.”

Working closely with Lt. Byers’ new recruits is field training Sgt. Karen O’Hagan, who accompanies new patrol officers during their initial hiring and probationary period through various training phase thresholds JCPD requires of them. Cutting muster in the classroom can’t hold a candle to what officers will inevitably face in the field, O’Hagan assured academy cadets.

Rounding out the academy’s final presentations was uniform patrol day shift commander Sgt. Ben Finley, followed by North Metro SWAT team officer Cory Begeal and JCPD K-9 patrol Officer Will Goins and his specially bred and trained German shepherd patrol partner, Leo.

Sgt. Finley demonstrated various arm and leg strike techniques and other hand-to-hand combat positions involving choke and pressure point leverage holds.

At 6 feet, 3 inches tall, Sgt. Finley’s physical presence alone could hush an unruly crowd.

But his Elvis Presley-like swagger and the charisma of a young Lee Majors both disarmed and charmed the cadets during what was one of the most physically intensive presentations from any of the officers they’d yet seen.  

“I can assure you all that this type of stuff is not what you see on TV,” Sgt. Finley explained while applying a twisting arm bar hold on a wincing Officer Madhusudana Meberg who volunteered for the exercises. “And things never go the way you plan when someone is fighting you with everything thing they’ve got just to try to get away or do away with you. Sometimes it can turn into a good old fashioned butt-kicking contest on the side of the road.”

JCPD SWAT operations and tactics was presented by Sandy Springs undercover narcotics detective and youth apprentice police Explorer program director Officer Cory Begeal, who stood in on last minute’s notice after the scheduled speaker had a family emergency.

Cadets were most impressed and fascinated with Officer Begeal’s empty 50-pound ballistic vest and how he managed to maneuver in it with full armaments on hot Georgia summer days.

Johns Creek PD works with Dunwoody and Sandy Springs in a tactical and regional resource sharing partnership forming the North Metro SWAT Team.

But what was considered by cadets as the most intense indoor presentation of them all was JCPD’s dog and police officer show.  

The newest addition to JCPD’s K-9 patrol, Officer Will Goins and his highly trained and specially bred German Shepherd partner Leo stole the show.

JCPD’s K-9 unit consists of three handlers and their patrol dogs: Nico, Dano and Leo, with the addition of a fourth dog expected in 2012, Goins said. Leo was sworn into service in July along with Goins, who joined the force in 2010 having spent several years as a campus patrol officer at Kennesaw State University in Cobb County.   

Each handler’s car is specially outfitted for each police dog, including its own thermostat sensor so the K-9 officer won’t overheat or freeze. K-9 cars also have an emergency alarm system should the car sit for too long - lights and sirens flash and wail.

And the handler’s utility belt is equipped with a wireless remote that when activated will automatically open the car’s rear kennel door. Once the door is opened the dog is trained to run to his handler and charge and attack any threat, even if the officer is incapacitated.

In 2009, the most recent statistic year available, and the K-9 unit’s inaugural year, JCPD police dogs were utilized 93 times and assisted seven outside agencies, according to JCPD public affairs.

K-9 officers searched six buildings for burglars, assisted SWAT, and logged 408 total hours of service. They also helped track and apprehend two car break-in subjects that resulted in one subject being bitten.

The K-9 unit is also specially trained in illegal narcotics detection and scent tracking.

Police dogs are not intended to be family pets, Goins insisted, although Leo stays with him, his fiance, and their two English bulldogs to maintain their working bond. Police K-9s are bred specifically for military and police use. Bloodlines run generations and breeders are so specialized that they’re found only in certain parts of the world, including the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic and Poland.

The dogs only respond to the language native to their place of inception. Goins’ commands are in Dutch and he joked during his K-9 presentation about how Leo mistook his initial Dutch annunciations for “bite” with “sit”.

“Probably not the best thing to be going after a subject and your K-9 partner sits down in front of him while initiating physical contact,” Goins joked.

When a police dog reaches the end of its career that’s expected to last 10 years, handlers typically adopt them from the department for a nominal fee since they’ve formed such a close bond.

Officer Goins was interrupted often by his tail wagging and whining 2-year-old K-9 partner who wanted out of his large travel pen to be where he belonged - by his handler’s side.

Goins opened the cage door and attached to Leo a special harness and leash.

It was Officer Meberg who again stepped up to volunteer for show-of-force exercises as he slipped on and fastened a heavy gauge, padded black nylon bite training sleeve that ran from his armpit down past the tips of his fingers.

And it was Officer Meberg who again caught the wrath of his uniformed colleagues.

Instead of K-9 officer Leo taking a bite out a crime, he accidentally took a bite out of Officer Meberg’s right forearm.

The dog’s sharp incisors and hundreds of pounds of instant biting force punctured the protective sleeve Meberg was wearing as the dog worked as his training dictated to pull the subject to the ground.

“It just goes to show the power these highly trained animals have,” Goins said after a good-spirited Officer Meberg was treated for a minor puncture wound. “And it also proves how willing they are to do anything to accomplish their mission.

“And to keep us safe.”