The Levelland Police Department (LPD) held their first Junior Police Academy last Monday through Friday at Levelland High School.
The academy was for students going into eighth through ninth grade. Each afternoon throughout the week, participants learned about various topics from instructors from the LPD with a graduation on Friday afternoon.
“I think it went great!” LPD Student Resource Officer Nino said. “We really enjoyed it, and without the kids’ participation, we really couldn’t make this happen. The fact that they wanted to do this during their summer was awesome.”
The idea to hold a Junior Police Academy came from Levelland Police Chief O’Bryon. During her previous stops in her carrer, those departments had junior academies like it. The chief presented the idea to the resource officers and they took off with the idea.
“I was like, sure, I’m up for the challenge,” Nino said. “So she got me in contact with another sergeant from another department who has done it once, so I got with him, and I was like, ‘Can you point me in the right direction of what all we need to do?’” On Monday, K-9 Investigations was led by Officer Baeza. Tuesday led by Captain Lopez, and Detective Wooton. The duo administered the department’s physical fitness test.
“During my entire career here [Levelland Police Department] I have never seen this type of program administered or hosted,” said Lopez. “It was a very good experience for my module, but the graduation portion was very positive for the kids and for law enforcement.”
Wednesday was split between CIT Meredith, Animal Control Officer Perez and Animal Control Manager Cole.
On Thursday, criminal investigations were led by Detective Wooten and Detective Brown.
The 286th District Attorney, Donnie Yandall and Investigator Chris Covarrubias also took the time to speak about their side of the process.
Friday was wrapped up with a graduation ceremony with family and friends of the academy invited to attend.
“They [students] see us as school resource officers everyday when they’re in school, so I wanted to bring in and open their eyes to the different divisions that we have,” Nino said. “Maybe they’re not leaning toward being a police officer, but maybe they want to do something like animal enforcement or be a part of a different division we have. So that’s why I decided to involve those different divisions.”
For the group of students involved, there were six eager junior academy graduates out of the 12 that were selected. Due to various reasons four were unable to attend once the first day came around.
The group ranged from entering eighth grade through ninth grade. Nino explained that this age group was selected as students are not too entirely sure what they want to pursue as a career.
They’re still young. They’re close to entering high school or about to,” said Nino. “This allowed them to see a little taste of what law enforcement’s like, and if it’s something for them.”
Looking to the future, Nino is excited to continue holding junior academies.
“When we finally got everything going, we started to think about the possibility of holding a more advanced junior police academy,” said Nino. “We are already brainstorming about next year and what we want to do. That’s really rewarding to see that hey, we can run with this thing and do quite a bit more while focusing on different age groups.