Newest Members of the North Andover Police Department

Photo: Left to right: Officer Brandon James, Officer Anthony Sousa, Lt. Charles Gray, Chief Paul Gallagher, Lt. E. J. Foulds, Officer Michael Logan and Officer Adrian Cuevas.

The four new officers graduated from the very first class at the Merrimack Valley’s Police Officer Recruit Tarining Academy class at Northern Essex Community College.

Northern Essex Community College’s Haverhill Campus became home at the start of the year to the state’s newest Police Recruit Officer Training Academy, which provides training for recruits who will be joining local police departments.

Recruits went through an intensive training program that met daily Monday through Friday for 25 weeks. Training focused on constitutional law, prevention and intervention, community policing, domestic violence, elder abuse, victims’ rights, and other topics. All training took place on the Haverhill Campus except for fire arms training and emergency driving techniques which were held at off-campus locations.

There are currently academies located in other areas of the state, but not in the upper Merrimack Valley, according to George Moriarty, NECC’s director of workforce development and corporate education.

“Local police chiefs were experiencing enrollment backlogs at the existing academies,” said Moriarty in a statement. “And they approached the college about starting an academy in Haverhill.”