What We Know: The Springfield Police Department welcomed 19 new officers to its ranks Wednesday evening during the graduation ceremony for its 81st Police Academy class.
What It Means: The ceremony was held at 7 p.m. in the Hatch Auditorium at The Library Center and was also streamed live on CityView and the Springfield Police Department’s Facebook page.
The graduating class includes 17 men and two women who began academy training in February. During the past 27 weeks, the recruits completed more than 1,100 hours of classroom instruction and hands-on law enforcement training.
The academy prepares recruits for a wide range of situations they may encounter while serving the public. Training includes criminal law, defensive tactics, firearms, emergency vehicle operations, first aid, crisis response and other essential police skills.
Graduation marks an important milestone, but the officers’ training is not yet complete.
What’s Next: Each graduate will now be paired with an experienced field training officer for another 16 weeks. During that time, they will complete an additional 640 hours of supervised, on-the-job training while working in the community.
After successfully finishing the field training program, the officers will be assigned to solo patrol duties in the department’s Uniform Operations Bureau..
Police officials say those different experiences help strengthen the department by bringing a wide range of skills and perspectives to serving the Springfield community.
(Logo Courtesy of Springfield Police Department)