Boot Camp: Dunwoody PD Trains Future Law Enforcement Officers

Friday morning, in a room full of empty chairs at First Baptist Church of Atlanta, 16 young men and women, mostly teenagers, rehearsed their marching steps in sync, to the loud instructions of a drill sergeant.

They saluted, turned corners as a group and moved as one, shouting “yes sirs” along the way.

It was the final day of an intense six-day law enforcement explorer academy put on by the Dunwoody Police Department. And from the look and sound of things, the academy was a success.

“There was a good amount of stress put on them the first couple of days,” said Sgt. Rusty Furman, with the Dunwoody Police Department. “A lot of them hadn’t been put under that kind of pressure before, but it really brought them together as one big group.”

Furman came up with the idea for the academy, the first of its kind in Georgia.

After attending a national training on Police Explorers – groups of teenagers and young adults interested in law enforcement – he found that many states had week-long programs, which seemed to put their explorer programs on a very high plane.

“We thought it would bring the entire Explorer program in Georgia up a few levels,” he said, hoping it would put the state’s programs on a national standard.

The explorer cadets arrived on the previous Sunday at noon – heading into five and a half days of team building, sleeping on cots, 4:30 a.m. wake up calls and training.

Explorer posts from all over the Atlanta area had cadets in the academy, including Kennesaw Police Department, Fulton County, Sandy Springs Police, Clayton County Police, Marietta Police and Dunwoody Police.

Cadets woke up each day around 5 a.m., folded their cots, cleaned their ‘barracks’ and went out for exercise, including runs in the parking lot and push-ups.

“They challenged us physically and mentally,” said Patrick Szalay, 18, of Kennesaw. “We went through a lot of training, team building and a lot of things we aren’t used to doing in our every day lives.”

Among the key differences were the early wake up calls, the intense, all day training sessions and the lack of outside distractions.

“There was no access to the internet. No TV. No Xbox,” said Lt. Oliver Fladrich. “This was all about helping each other out and doing the right thing.”

He said putting the teenage cadets into those kinds of conditions helped them focus.

“We could not have gotten this result had this been three or four weekends in a row,” said Lt. Oliver Fladrich. “This is a total immersion program.”

There were team building exercises, handcuffing practices, a day trip to a shooting range in Alpharetta, driving a four-wheeler while wearing ‘drunk goggles,’ simulated traffic stops and burglary responses, as well as a simulated response to an unknown situation that turned out to be a drug house.

There were also classes on law, law enforcement history and gangs.

“We teach them police work, but really that’s just the avenue we use to teach character, leadership and teamwork,” said Furman.

“Pretty much all of us got a lot out of this experience because it was really hard at the beginning and we learned a lot of discipline and how to work together as a team,” said Jessica Doucet, 17, with the Kennesaw Police Department’s Explorer Post. “We learned a lot from each other and from the instructors.”

The department plans to make the academy an annual event, and possibly expand into holding more throughout the year.

“The academy went way better than we had planned or ever hoped and they responded much better than we’d hoped they’d respond,” Furman said.

Friday, at 3 p.m., the group put on new shirts, pressed their pants and walked into the same room they’d been in earlier that morning. In formation, they walked through a graduation ceremony, responding to commands, and offering sharp, quick salutes. This time, the seats in the room were full of proud parents, siblings and police officers from the explorer posts throughout the Atlanta Metro area.

“I challenge the advisers and officers that help in their own agencies to raise bar in their [Explorers] post, because they are going to want it,” said Sgt. Fidel Espinosa, with the Dunwoody Police Department. “Allow them to go back and teach their peers what they’ve learned this week.”

After the ceremony, the cadets flashed smiles of relief after finishing the intense program, but they quickly sought out their 'drill sergeants' from the week, giving them hugs and thanks.

Furman said the cadets had performed very well through the intense week.

“They really absorbed it,” he said. “None of them ever quit. Probably Sunday night they wanted to quit, but they didn’t. I’m really proud of them for that.”