Ready for duty?

Recent shootings and other incidents involving local law enforcement officers have some residents wondering whether those sworn "to protect and serve" are being properly trained.

Two officer-involved shootings in June resulted in 14 local law enforcement officers being placed on administrative leave. Eleven of those officers are with the Coeur d'Alene Police Department, leaving the agency operating 15 percent under normal personnel levels.

The fatal shooting of a dog earlier this month by a Coeur d'Alene police officer prompted that agency to initiate mandatory dog encounter training for all officers.

Coeur d'Alene resident Jim Ballew worked for 30 years in the California justice system as a trial lawyer and a judge. Ballew said the statistics for officer-involved shootings in the area are "almost unheard of" for a city the size of Coeur d'Alene.

"What I want to see is a police department that is properly educated and has the proper tools for dealing with the community as a whole," Ballew said. "I'm sure the police department has a hell of a lot of good cops. But I do think that there may be some people there that would be better suited at other jobs."

Rathdrum police Chief Kevin Fuhr said the public should be careful not to jump to conclusions that, just because there have been a few local incidents that have touched off debates as to whether officers acted appropriately, that a lack of training is the problem.

"The officers in this state are well-trained," Fuhr said. "The issue is not a lack of training."

Fuhr said what the public often doesn't hear about is the good decisions many other officers make daily.

Basic training

The Idaho Peace Officer Standards and Training Academy, or POST, provides the initial 13-week training every officer in the state receives. Courses include, but are not limited to, law, processing crime scenes, traffic stops, interacting with the public and shooting training.

POST academies are offered in Meridian and at North Idaho College.

"I wouldn't say it's easy, but most do pass," Post Falls police Chief Scot Haug said.

He said he doesn't believe the training an officer receives through the POST Academy is sufficient enough to send him on the street.

"Hair dressers and massage therapists even go through months of training before they are certified," he said. "My belief is that the basic academy training should be extended. When officers come out of the academy, we spend time with them getting them up to speed. And that has nothing to do with NIC. It's simply what the Idaho POST requirement is."

Ballew said he believes the initial requirements for a potential officer to attend the POST Academy, specifically having a high-school diploma as an educational minimum, aren't strict enough either.

"Two years of college as a basis for employment is critical," he said. "If you take two years of legitimate college classes, these classes also give you a better insight on how to deal with people and show that you have the ability to have matured a little bit."

"When you put somebody on the force with a gun and a badge without those capabilities - you cannot teach those extra things."

The starting pay for a Coeur d'Alene officer with previous experience is $22.69 per hour. The wage for an officer with no experience is $21.61.

The starting wage for a Post Falls officer with no experience is $20.71 an hour and $21.70 for officers with previous experience. Rathdrum officers start at $18.60.

Applying

Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood said she frequently talks to potential officers at NIC. Even though the educational requirement for officers throughout the county is a high-school diploma or its equivalent, Wood said the reality is much different.

"Everyone they're competing with probably has some sort of college education," Wood said. "Most of our officers do have college education, the overwhelming majority are college-educated."

Applicants for positions with the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office primarily have high school diplomas, said Undersheriff Dan Mattos. Candidates that aren't ready are weeded out, he said, through the application process.

"The written test is a pretty good written test," Mattos said. "That's pretty much where we are gauging their basic smarts, so to speak."

Candidates are required to fill out an extensive questionnaire, which is used in the background check that employees at the agencies perform.

"The background is explored thoroughly," Mattos said. "If they pass the background test, and we don't find any automatic disqualifiers, then they are given a polygraph test and a psychological test. Once they get through all of that, they have a job with us."

Haug said a home visit is also part of Post Falls' interview process.

"We'll even knock on neighbors' doors (to ask about the candidate)," Haug said. "We're looking for somebody who has good ethics and morals and are good decisionmakers who fit in with our department."

Once hired, local agencies try to send the new hires to the POST Academy as quickly as possible if they haven't previously received the training.

"We try to hire them right about the time that the academy starts, otherwise we are paying them to sit around," Wood said. "It's not fiscally responsible to bring somebody on and have nowhere for them to go."

New personnel at the sheriff's office are used as marine deputies, Mattos said, if there isn't an academy beginning soon after they are hired.

"We send them to a short marine academy and use them during the summertime on the boats," Mattos said. "But we try to time that to where the academy is not far off."

POST North

Six years ago, Idaho POST approved an academy at NIC, called POST North. Previously, the only academy in the state was in Meridian.

"For years, Boise has had that hometown advantage when it comes to training their officers," Wood said. "They're learning a lot about the city they're going to work for at the same time they are going through training.

"(POST North) is a real benefit to us, not only financially, but as a training aspect to be right here in the north."

The academy is about to take its 11th round of hopeful officers and, according to Director Mike Berg, the program has had a high success rate.

"I've never had a student fail the final test," Berg said. "Four people have been dismissed prior to that final test though."

The 13-week program ranges in size from nine to 22 students.

Two types of students attend the classes, Berg said - those that have already been hired by an agency and what he called "self-sponsored" students who are trying to make themselves more marketable.

"It's a very intensive program," Berg said. "We go through a lot of information and training that stretches them both physically and mentally."

Berg added that POST North is more intensive than its counterpart in Meridian.

"We are required to, at a minimum, give all the courses that they give in Meridian," Berg said. "However I take the courses Meridian lists as optional and make them mandatory."

Those courses include training on how to properly use a taser and shotgun, as well as how to conduct an in-field sobriety test using a breathalyzer.

Students also participate in several roleplaying scenarios throughout the academy. Berg said he has several roleplayers in the community that he utilizes, some of whom are former law enforcement officers.

"I never tell them to be too uncooperative but the roleplayers do run a range of emotions," Berg said. "I have one roleplayer who is just wonderful - she can cry on command and that really can get to these young cadets."

Once cadets have passed the final, Berg said they have built a foundation for their career in law enforcement.

"We provide students with the basic knowledge they need, then they proceed from there. When they graduate from the academy, they don't go directly onto patrol," Berg said. "The state still requires them to take certain in-house trainings. Once they complete those trainings, the agency determines where the officer will end up."

Building on the foundation

Mattos said that while cadets probably wish they spent 13 weeks of their lives doing something other than attending the academy, when they graduate they "come out of it with a good education."

But that education is just the beginning.

"When they get done with the academy, in my world that teaches them to just put on their uniform and walk to their car," Mattos said. "Then they spend another three weeks at a mini-academy we hold here where they learn how we do business."

After the sheriff's office mini-academy, new deputies spend another 14-weeks undergoing training in the field.

"There's more training after the academy than there was during the academy," Mattos said.

Other local agencies have similar training programs both internally and in the field after POST.

"They're assigned a field training officer and they go through phases," Wood said of Coeur d'Alene's program.

The three phases build on each other, Wood said, and by the time an officer in training reaches the third stage "the expectations are very high."

"Sometimes people don't make it," Wood said. "Sometimes law enforcement isn't for everyone. Sometimes people realize that they don't like the conflict and having to approach people and calm a situation. We've had people that have either quit the program or we've told them they just can't carry on because there's a potential safety issue."

Even after completing the initial in-house trainings and observations, Wood said officers are constantly being trained.

"There's a lot of additional training," Wood said. "We have a lot of certifications we are required to keep, so there are quarterly trainings and yearly trainings."

Most local law enforcement agencies have their officers go beyond the minimum of 40 hours of training every two years needed to maintain their POST certification.

"Our officers train an average of 80 hours annually," Haug said.

Haug said that if someone with no experience applies and, if PFPD hires that person, it may be almost a year before the officer is on the street on his or her own.

"They have months of training before they're on the street," he said.

Every day an officer works they are trained, Wood said, often during their daily briefings. During those briefings, the shift supervisor will go over topics and give officers refreshers on the laws they are expected to enforce.

"There's an awful lot to know so we try to reinforce that with ongoing training," Wood said.

Haug said agencies realize that constant and sufficient training is paramount in the law enforcement profession.

"A police officer has one of the highest risk jobs in the community," he said. "They're given a car, a gun and a set of rules to enforce the law. If they make a mistake, it can be a costly financial burden to the community."