What a long, great trip it's been for the class of 2011—of the Baltimore County Police Citizens Academy, anyway.  The 30th, four-month long series of classes designed to teach citizens what police work is all about came to a close Tuesday. Of the 66 that started the program, 51 graduated and received a certificate from Police Chief James Johnson.  This editor has dutifully documented the journey, from chaos to combat. My fellow graduates asked me to say a few words about the experience, which you can view in the accompanying video. In addition, here's a look back at the notes that filled my …

Being on time to the last class of Baltimore County's 30th Citizens Police Academy was a bit more imperative than normal. The chief of police was our speaker.  Chief James Johnson touted what most of us had come to know—that the county's police department is one of the best in the nation. It's the 20th largest department in America, it's a leader in handgun control and traffic safety, and for those reasons and more, it has garnered $60 million in federal grants over the last six years, he said.  He also offered some advice on interpreting the trends in our communities.  "If you look at it …

The presentation in our second-to-last class of Baltimore County's 30th Citizens Academy by Allison Paladino, LCPW-C, and Det. Jeanne Pilarski-Slattery showed that of 2,503 calls for service in 2010, only 479 ended with trips to jail or the ER. That small percentage is what are officially called crises, and the way police deal with these types of incidents, such as suicides and people with chronic mental issues, has changed a lot over the past decade. Lock 'em up and "get touchy-feely" later is how Baltimore County police used to handle such situations, Paladino said. Escorting someone in …

The life of a bomb technician boils down to this reality—he or she does what few others are willing to do.  "When everyone is going the other way, we're going towards the device," said Det. Steve Byrd of the Baltimore County Hazardous Devices team.   Byrd was with us for the first half of the 13th class of this year's Citizens Academy. He looked like someone whom I would want to handle a high-stress, bomb-related situation. His stout, muscular build and crew cut matched his demeanor, which stayed serious while he described the duties of the four full-time bomb technicians in the county police…

There was no blood spilled but there was "a little bit of pain involved." The Baltimore County Police Department's 30th Citizens Academy trip to the Martin State Airport Saturday to learn about its aviation, marine, K-9 and SWAT units was an adventure.  We heard from pilots about the air program, which was founded in 1983 by Roy Taylor, an officer and WBAL Channel 11 sky team reporter who rented his Cessna 150 to police for $1 a year in order to kick-start the program. We also got a lesson from Cpl. Dave Garner of SWAT, or the Special Weapons and Tactics team, who brought along field …

While we weren't taught the magic formula for getting out of a speeding ticket, Sgt. Chuck Hart and Ofc. Rich Kesterson painted a picture of what it's like patrolling the roads throughout Baltimore County at our latest Citizens Police Academy class. Here are some highlights: On speeding and ticketingBelieve it or not, Kesterson said, Baltimore County does not require a quota of traffic tickets issued from its officers. Ticket fines can range from $80 to a whopping $530, which are issued when someone gets caught pushing 40 mph or more above the speed limit.  Hart also told us that Kesterson's …

Wrinkles run perpendicular to your muscles? Really? I sat back, retooling my outlook on aging (so the more wrinkles, the more muscles, right?), reunited with the 30th class of the Baltimore County Citizens Police Academy. We had spent the last two weeks experiencing live fire and scenario training in smaller, separate groups. We were back in Towson Tuesday for class,  which was on forensic art and CSI.  Det. Eve Grant, whose training includes time at the FBI, presented the first of the two topics. Yes, your wrinkles do run perpendicular to your muscles. In addition, it's a set of 21 universal…

Ain't nothin' like the real thing—or something pretty close to it—for students of the justice program at the Community College of Baltimore County's Dundalk campus. The latest class of Baltimore County's 30th Citizen's Police Academy brought a group of us to Dundalk Tuesday for an opportunity to train for "calls to service" first-hand. Our tasks? To respond to a domestic dispute in a bank, drugs found in a teenager's bedroom, a bar patron with a gun and a gas station patron ripping up magazines.  "You're always doing this!" Det. Jim Skidmore shouted at his scenario-wife Sarah Lentz, who began…

"Shoot or don't shoot?" was the simple question with the impossibly difficult answer. It was asked by Baltimore County officer Henry "Butch" Himpler, a senior firearm instructor at the world-renowned shooting range in Timonium, MD. The situation? A man with a knife faces four police officers in front of a popular shopping district.  A crowd builds, standing behind the officers who have their guns drawn. The officers repeatedly implore the man to put down his weapon. Bystanders join in the pleas. A concrete trash container stands in the middle of everything, obstructing the view of the man's …

The message Det. Paul Ciepiela had for us Tuesday night was clear: Be on alert, because gangs are everywhere.   More than a thousand known members are in Baltimore County and more and more women are joining. They even exist in the military. And with the exception of being born into a gang family, the culture pervades minds as young as 7 years old.  "I'm not telling you this to scare you," he said. "But it crosses every socio-economic, racial and ethnic boundary we have in society." The room of about 50 students was its most animated and somber during our last of three presentations at the …

Fortunately for me, the Baltimore County Citizens Police Academy allows for three absences before students are disqualified from graduating from the program. For what I hope to be the only time, I was absent from class last night. I missed presentations on internal affairs and an introduction to crime analysis. But I'm not empty-handed. Here's the breakdown of the rest of the classes I have to look forward to: March 22: Gangs, residential security and youth and community resources. March 29: Calls for service, patrol procedures and scenarios, use of force, shooting police and live fire (…

Lt. Rob McCullough, a Baltimore County public information officer, and Maj. Jeff Caslin, commanding officer of the Baltimore County Homeland Security Division, took students behind the scenes of police media relations and local anti-terrorism efforts on the second night of the county's 30th Citizens Police Academy. Here's a breakdown of each topic:On media relations As a journalist, you might worry that sitting in on a PIO's lecture about the pros and cons of working with the media could be uncomfortable. Fear alleviated. Lt. McCullough, who has been involved with police work since he was 18…

My first night of Citizens Academy was a lot like the first day of any class. Nobody was going to talk first. "No questions? I tell you, it's amazing what the difference is between what you all will be like on your graduation day than how it is right now," Capt. J. Martin Lurz, commander of Cockesyville Precinct No. 7, told us as we listened intently.  I slid into a seat in the last row a little before 6:30 p.m., just after being handed a binder of considerable weight. I listened to Det. Teresa Moudry, the academy's coordinator, tell us that more than 60 students had signed up for this year's…

The Baltimore County Citizens’ Police Academy tends to dispel most myths surrounding law enforcement, Capt. Matt McElwee told me Monday, undoing one of the questions lurking in my mind about my latest journalistic venture. The 30th CPA class will unify residents of various ethnic, economic and religious backgrounds who are compelled to learn more about public service, he said.  “You'll find out fact vs. fiction, TV vs. reality," McElwee said. CSI: Miami, The Wire and plenty of other cop-themed television and cinema have helped exaggerate the mystique and stereotypes of police work. For the …