From Teacher to Patrolman, PC Native Finds Niche On the Force

More than two years ago, Mike Giandurco was fresh from graduate school, with a masters in history under his belt and a career as a teacher on the horizon.

But like many recent graduates, Giandurco, 28, learned the reality of the job market the hard way through unreturned calls and ignored cover letters.

What makes Giandurco's story unique is that the Port Chester native says he's happier for it. Certified to teach seventh through 12th grade, Giandurco could have found himself trying to impart the finer points of the American Revolution to unruly teenagers.

Instead, he puts on a bullet proof vest and a crisp uniform every morning and spends his days patrolling the village from a squad car.

And to his surprise, Giandurco said many of the skills he expected to use in the classroom have proved effective as a police officer. Both jobs, he notes, center around human interaction.

"What I'm really enjoying is there's something different going on every day," he said. "No day is ever the same. You never know what you'll get to see or experience."

Giandurco entered the police academy in January and graduated on May 27. Since then, he's joined the police force under the tutelage of his training officer, Chris Ceccarelli.

"My job is to make sure that he does everything by standards and stays safe out there on the street," Ceccarelli said.

That includes everything from properly handling prisoners to making sure Giandurco is "in a position of advantage" if things ever turn ugly during a traffic stop and his life is threatened.

The training period covers "everything that you can't get in a classroom setting," Ceccarelli said 

Giandurco agrees, saying he's enjoying the field instruction as he learns and practices procedure. In the past few weeks, the rookie officer and his veteran instructor have worked day and night shifts and responded to every manner of incident.

Although there's always a bit of ribbing in police culture, Giandurco says his fellow officers have been "extremely supportive."

"It's very close-knit," he said.

That's because the officers with years on the job already view him as a colleague who will share years of experiences, from tense situations to the stranger-than-fiction incidents tend to pop up in the world of law enforcement.

"We're not a huge department, and we certainly get our fair share of dangerous experiences that we go through while we're at work," Ceccarelli said. "It's almost like a brotherhood, and everybody knows each other."

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