Pocatello Citizen Police Academy honors 13 graduates

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) – The Pocatello Police Department recognized more than a dozen graduating citizens from its Citizen Police Academy on Tuesday.

Participants attended more than 25 hours of training over 8 weeks to learn about the duties and responsibilities of police officers and the inner workings of the department.

"This gives us an opportunity to do one of the most important things that it can do for any leadership group – and that's building relationships," said Pocatello Police Chief Roger Schei. "This program helps us build relationships with members of our community, with us and with the members that were entrusted to serve."

During the course, participants experienced or learned about hands-on firearms training, an emergency vehicle operations course, SWAT training, DUI investigations, explosive breaching, use of force and more.

Idaho State University's Instructional Technology Resource Center Director and Citizen Police Academy Graduate Bob Houghton said his favorite part of the program was the gang task force.

"We have a lot of trafficking that happens here. It's not the usual suspects that you would think," Houghton said. "There's a lot of influence from China, and there's a lot of influence from motorcycle gangs and those kind of things that are moving a lot of of drugs and humans around."

He enjoyed learning how Pocatello officers' responsibilities differ significantly from typical depictions on TV crimes shows like Law and Order and CSI.

"One thing I'm going to take back is a truly new respect for the police and what they do here in Pocatello, and all of the resources that they pour into making sure that we are a truly safe community," Houghton said.

Pocatello Mayor Mark Dahlquist honored graduates for investing their time to better understand law enforcement and their community.

"I understand this is the biggest class in quite some time in a few years, and I hope you've grown too," Dahlquist said. "... That's one of the goals is just to expose you to all of this and see what our police officers go through. They're so super dedicated, and they're putting their life out there every day protecting the community."