Hustle to prep police recruits for local streets

Published 11:38 pm Monday, October 1, 2007

EVERETT — Day 20 was dirty.

Shoulder to shoulder in a crowded classroom, Snohomish County’s newest police officer recruits dusted black powder on soda cans, cookie packages, water bottles, pudding cups, plastic containers and windows.

They were searching for fingerprints. The kind they might find at a crime scene.

Their hands soon were smudged with ink as they rolled each others’ fingerprints onto index cards. It’s a skill they’ll need to use one day when they catch a bad guy.

Twenty-seven men and one woman are learning about the basics of being a police officer, and they’re doing it here in Everett.

For the first time in about a decade, the state has partnered with Snohomish County police departments to hold a local basic law enforcement training academy.

Police recruits normally attend the state’s academy in Burien, but there has been an extended waiting list. Police departments from around the state have been hiring at a rapid pace and have to jockey to get qualified candidates into the academy. It’s a first-come, first-served system, said Cheryl Price, a spokeswoman for the state Criminal Justice Training Commission.

That has left some police departments waiting up to six months to get their recruits into the academy.

That wait added to an already prolonged hiring process, said Snohomish County sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Brand. Brand is the training coordinator at the satellite academy that started up five weeks ago. Generally it takes up to 15 months to get recruits tested, hired and trained before they’re patrolling the streets. It’s a gruelling process and only about one out 10 applicants even makes it, Brand said.

The sheriff’s office has about 14 open positions. There are about 34 more spots in patrol or investigations that aren’t filled because deputies are out injured, were put on administrative leave or are in training. There are 10 recruits in the academy here and another three in Burien. Four more are working through the three-month field training program that teams them with a senior officer.

“Any waiting time we can take off is a good thing,” Brand said.

Because of the competition for qualified candidates, most departments hire recruits before they attend the academy, Lynnwood Police Chief Steven Jensen said. That could mean a person is paid to sit around for a few months before starting the training to become a police officer.

Concerned with the long wait, Snohomish County police chiefs last year began working with the training commission to come up with a solution.

“The chiefs and sheriff said a six-month waiting period isn’t reasonable and said they couldn’t wait that long,” Brand said.

The commission agreed to allow an academy here. Local police officers became state-certified instructors, and officials at Naval Station Everett agreed to provide the classrooms.

Police recruits from Bothell, Edmonds, Lake Stevens, Lynnwood, Marysville, Mill Creek, Monroe, Snohomish and the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office will spend about five months learning about police procedures and state laws.

“It’s 720 hours. We’re hopeful it’s enough to keep them safe and help them make an impact on the streets,” said Bothell police Sgt. Bryan Keller.

Keller is a TAC — trainer, adviser and coach. He started with the recruits and will be with them until graduation in January.

“I make sure they stay on the straight and narrow and I give them guidance,” he said.

Keller teaches traffic enforcement. He joins other instructors from the sheriff’s office, Mukilteo, Lynnwood and Edmonds.

The instructors have been certified by the state training commission and teach the curriculum approved by the state. It will be a huge advantage to have certified instructors in the county, Brand said.

“It’s taken another 28 people off of the waiting list the state has and now we have a group of certified instructors who can teach here and down in Burien,” he said. “It’s a win-win situation.”

This class of recruits also will be getting about two weeks of additional training on issues such as the use of nonlethal force and radio operations. They’ll also participate in a community service project.

It’s a huge undertaking to conduct an academy, Jensen said.

“It seems like it’s going well and we’re excited to get them on the streets,” he said of the six recruits Lynnwood has in the academy. “We’re short in patrol.”

Brandon Lynch, a recruit for the sheriff’s office, on Monday stood in front of window dusted with black fingerprint powder and carefully lifted a latent from the glass with a piece of a tape. He secured the print to a card.

“That looks like a good one,” he said.

Once a sailor with the U.S. Navy, Lynch, 26, was stationed in Everett at one point. He submitted an application in January and was hired over the summer.

Lynch had been thinking about becoming a police officer for quite some time, he said.

“I think it takes a certain maturity level so I waited until I was older,” Lynch said. “It was time to go after what I want.”

Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.