The Way I See It!

Cudahy Citizens Police Academy - Week 1

Posted by Randy Hollenbeck on March 30, 2010

Cudahy, Police, Citizen Police Academy

The first week was mainly orientation. 

We had the introduction and course layout.

We learned about the Cudahy Police history, goals, and the mission

We took a tour of the Police Department

We watched the Dispatch Center where the 911 and other police calls come in

1^st shift Sgt. Chris Blunt, 2^nd shift Police Officer Tom Livesey and Chief Tom Poellot introduced themselves to the class.  We have 16 people in the class.

I found the history of the Police department and its Police Chiefs interesting.  Up to 1988, there were very few turnovers in Police Chiefs.  The changes in the firearms was also interesting, along with the changes overtime with computer modernizations.

Retired Detective Gene Behnke furthered the history lesson by talking about how in the early 1970’s they had to use the street police call boxes to take about private items with dispatch and how things changed over the years.  He told the class about a few of job assignments that he had over the years including an undercover assignment that ended with the driving the suspect right to the police station without them noticing it until they were in the parking lot.

When we took a tour of the Police Department, we looked at the cars, the offices and saw the jail cells, which the first one in the men’s area has padded walls and a restraint seat.

They have a glass case collection of some of the interesting weapons they have confiscated, including a bazooka and grenade.

The Dispatch Center was very interesting to see on the monitors, the routing of the calls and the lookups that Dispatch is doing for the Police in the field.  We saw a demonstration if what a 911 call sounds and looks like when it comes in.  We even heard someone call looking for information on what number to call for overnight parking.  And dispatch looking up information for a Police Officer that pulled someone over.  It just happen for one of the occupants of the vehicle there was an arrest warrant for them.