Officers teach Benicia Middle School students ins, outs of department

Benicia police has 27 new graduates who have seen the inner workings of the department, experienced what it might be like to drive while impaired and tried to solve such crimes as car theft, vandalism and an interrupted burglary.

Those graduates are all Benicia Middle School rising seventh- and eighth-grade students who recently completed the department’s second Youth Citizen Police Academy, which culminated in Friday’s graduation ceremony.

The academy is based on one developed by Officer Lisa Hale of the Peoria, Ariz., Police Department. Benicia police Sgt. Kenny Hart visited Arizona to learn more about the program, then adapted it for Benicia children.

The department has a Citizens Police Academy for adults, and offered the first student academy under the administration of Andrew Bidou, who left as chief of Benicia police to accept the same position with Vallejo Police Department. Benicia’s new chief, Erik Upson, also strongly encourages a good relationship between officers and the city’s youth, Hart said.

The children’s class, unlike the weekly adult academy, meets daily, and starts with establishing a motto based on qualities desired of officers — as well as those the children expect to see in themselves — as part of a code of conduct. In a unifying chant, they proclaim themselves as “Class II,” with a motto of “Respect! Honor! Integrity!”

During the week, the students learned about drugs and their hazards. They also got a chance to meet Officer Kenyatta Nathaniel, the Benicia Middle School’s new Student Resource Officer. She’s succeeding Sid Peterson, who delayed his retirement two weeks until Friday so he could participate in the academy.

Officers advised the students that anything posted online, such as on social media sites, can remain in circulation on the Internet for many years, even if the original posting has been taken down. That means students need to think about the consequences of posting inappropriate materials.

In addition, students need to be alert to cyberbullying as well as more conventional types of harassment.

The students also heard from representatives of the courts and judicial system, as well as from emergency dispatchers.

Though too young either to drink or drive, they got a chance to experience both in an activity in which they wore glasses that simulated intoxication. Instead of driving cars, they pushed buggies, trying to negotiate such obstacles as traffic cones and walls.

Benicia officers described the weapons they use as part of their jobs, and the students learned about the protocols as well as practices in use of force, particularly when there’s an imminent threat of bodily harm.

They also participated in physical training, and received gift cards and treats for completing those exercises.

Hart said at the next academy physical exercises may be rescheduled to come after PowerPoint presentations, to accommodate students’ requests for more action and less sitting.

On the other hand, Hart told the children, sitting through PowerPoint talks is something genuine police officers do, too, particularly when they are completing police academies to further their careers.

Other routine police work involves writing reports and testifying in court, he explained.

The children learned that Benicia officers participate with those in Vallejo in the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team, and many said they enjoyed learning about the department’s police dogs. One student discovered that if a person pleads guilty to a crime, the matter may not go to trial; another was interested in how officers face danger as they search buildings for a suspect.

Like the adult academy, the children tackled crime scene scenarios. In one simulation, participants examined a case of vandalism to a wall, represented by a sheet of cardboard with emblems typical of a tagger.

In another scenario, students inspected the interior of car that had been reported stolen and was found crashed into an outdoor table. Police Explorer Bobby Truong, volunteering to help in the exercise, found himself being questioned about his version of the accident.

Inside the school, officers set up a scene that resembled an interrupted burglary, with a room’s contents stacked in one area and other items left on tables. The students got a chance to try to lift fingerprints, just as they’ve seen actors do on such television shows as “CSI.”

But they also learned the truth of crime scene investigation. Hart told them the DNA samples they took of themselves were legitimate tests, but results don’t come back at the end of a 60-minute broadcast. It can take weeks or more to receive the results from a laboratory, in part because samples have to wait their turn to be processed.

When Hart attended his police academy, the course lasted 800 hours. “Now it’s 1,000 hours,” he said. “Most is in the classroom. The rest is tactics, like driving and shooting. We have to write a report about every bad guy we chase.”

Students can take the course only once, but Hart told them they could offer to help in subsequent classes. Draemoni Harmon, a rising eighth grader, is a graduate of the first youth academy. He returned to assist in the second series of classes.

“I wanted to know more about what the police do,” she said. She has uncles who have retired from the Pittsburg and Walnut Creek police departments and now she has a better feel for what her uncles felt while on duty.

Draemoni wants to attend law school, and the academy enhanced her knowledge about her future career, she said — and also taught her about Internet safety and to “be more careful about what I do or say.” She said instead of bullying, students should “stand up for others.” Even when they don’t agree, she said, students should endeavor to understand different points of view.

She said more people are talking about bullying and understanding the consequences of bullying on victims. Some targets of bullying “throw their lives away,” she said sadly.

One change she saw in her class versus the one that finished Friday was the simulated impairment exercise.

“We used tricycles,” she said. But the students were large for the small, three-wheel vehicles. “This year, they used baskets and tried to weave them through the cones. A lot of people smashed them down. It feels like the whole world is tilting and spinning.”

She said her uncles are proud of her for having taken the course and helping with the second one. “They have high standards for me,” she said.