Wenatchee Police Accepting Citizen Academy Applications
If you've ever wanted to drive a police car or learn the role of a school resource officer, Wenatchee Police's Citizen Academy may be right up your alley.
The department is offering a 14-week course to get people acquainted with police's role in serving and protecting the community.
Officer Riley Cook is one of the academy's key hosts. He says the program is not designed to make people into police officers.
"It's more designed to inform the people that we serve on what we do, how we do it, and who is actually involved outside of just police officers." Officer Cook said.
Each class centers around a theme such as working as a school resource officer or drunk driver detection.
"Where the first half of the night we have drug recognition experts come in and actually teach the DUI process and how alcohol and drugs affect the body and how we are taught to detect drunk drivers," Officer Cook said. "And then we actually have a group that is in the back drinking, and the class actually gets to do those same tests on people who have actually been drinking."
And if you've never experienced what it's like behind the wheel of a police car, there's a class for that too.
"We also offer the opportunity to drive a police car on a skills course. We'll have our instructors come in and give a brief overview on how to operate a police car. Then we'll actually set up a course for them to drive the police car." Officer Cook said.
The course starts August 17th and runs until November 16th.
It's every Thursday Night from 6pm to 8:30pm. Application forms can be found on the City of Wenatchee's website.
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