 Hi everybody, this is Vosvedere with ACMI with Talk of the Town and here I'm with Lieutenant Brennan Keenan who heads the CPA, the Citizen Police Academy here in Arlington. And just start off by telling me a little bit about yourself, like how long have you been a police officer? Why in Arlington? I've been a police officer for over 19 years here in town in Arlington, I grew up here so I know the town well, it's been obviously very good to me so I want to give something back and be here and I really enjoy policing in a place that I grew up in. And tell me a little bit about the Citizen Police Academy and how it got started here. It started a few years ago when we were looking to find a way for the community to become more involved and be able to see what's really happening in the police department, see all these stories across the country and a lot of negative about police. So we thought it would be good for people to actually see what happens inside their own police department here in Arlington. So we decided to do this, Captain Jim Curran took the real lead on it, he was the one running the whole thing and I helped him with it to get it going. And so we put it out and we got a great response, we got two more people than we could fit in the classroom so we had to have a waiting list and everything which was great. So then we had a full class and we had people come in that were really interested in finding out what actually happens behind the scenes and for that matter, not even behind the scenes, just what happens on a daily basis out there on the street, what we do and what actually happens when we go out there and do our policing. And this used to be a program that you guys brought back in 2016, correct? Yes, that's correct. They had a program years ago, it had to be around probably 2001, 2002 in that area somewhere that had been popular at the time but it was just one of those things where there wasn't enough funding and like a lot of initiatives that we try to do, it's about funding and we're able to find the proper funding for it and enough for it so we're able to bring it back. Awesome. And how many people do you think graduate per class? 20. We have 20 people in each class, that's the limit, I mean just as far as logistically speaking that's the most that we can have in the class and every time it's full. And what are some of the main goals of the Citizen Police Academy? The biggest goal is for people to get a realistic, true idea of what happens in the Police Department, to be able to answer their questions because most people come in with questions for us and every class without fail goes over time because people have so many questions about whatever it is we're teaching that night. So that's our biggest goal is to answer people's questions and let them see what they want to know about the department. We have an idea, we put out an agenda, we each class so we know what we want to talk about and we want to try to get across to them but we let them kind of drive which direction it goes as far as we try to answer all their questions and let them let us know what information they want to know. What are some of the topics you guys covered, like I know you guys covered like the canine unit and going on ride-alongs on patrol and stuff like that. Yeah, well we start out with just general information about it. We let them know what our department is structured and you know what the different roles are in the department and who does what and that kind of thing so everybody has an idea of the basic workings of how the department runs on a day-to-day basis and then we also talk about the history of the department like when it started and up till now all the different milestones in the department as well as we include like policing in general in the history so they see like where Arlington is in history along with policing itself in its history so to sort of see where we stand as far as policing in this country through its history and then we go into a tour of the station so they can see as bad it's been you know redone a few years ago they remodeled the whole station so everyone gets to see the new station in just different parts that they ordinarily wouldn't see most of the people that are in the class haven't been in the cell block or in booking or any of those areas and they get to see it or the detective bureau they get to see all that and then from there we go through basically each phase of the department we go through what what the detectives do going to court what the patrol officer does on the street how responding to calls we do dispatch like what they do on a daily basis and daily basis as far as answering calls and what their role was in in the whole program in the whole department and then we go we go to the ride-alongs let everyone do a ride-along during it and then it culminates with them going and we go up to Camp Curtis Guild the Reading Police Academy and we let them get in the simulator so they can sort of they can be in scenarios like real-life scenarios and see how they would respond in the same situation after we go over like all the things that we would do and talk to them about it throughout the course and then they get to sort of see somewhat of a live action you know see what their response would be in a situation what kind of simulator is it is like VR is it like it's it's more of a 2d I mean it's a movie screen and but you have like actual they have OC spray and a firearm that you hold on to that you can actually you know use I mean it's obviously not a live firearm but it's a more lasers but it gives you an idea of like where you're aiming and that kind of stuff you actually used it it's it's a little difficult for them because it is 2d it's it's not it's somewhat responsive the operator of the gets to like the people will do different things depending upon what their responses what they say or how they act the person playing the officer but overall it's difficult because it's 2d it's just a you know it's the scenario on the screen you have to sort of respond to it and what would you say is like the age demographic of the specific kind of people that go into the Citizens Police Academy I guess a lot of older people is a lot of usually it's more older people but we're finding more and more there's definitely younger people getting involved and we enjoy that because then we get more perspective in the class it's not just one perspective saying oh this is how things should be it's your questions from from all different I mean it's we definitely had we had I think the youngest was maybe 20 or 19 this year in the oldest was close to 90 so we had we had a wide array so which was good because then we got all different perspectives and all the questions we got were from different perspectives so it was it was good to it's as good for us as it is for them because we get to see the public's perspective on us while they're seeing what we do and would you recommend this program to say like fresh out of school high school students who are looking to go into police it to the police academy and stuff like that or would you recommend yes I definitely would highly recommend it to people like that because it gives a background it's not something where you're gonna become a police officer because you were here but it's something where you get an idea if you get to see you know start to finish like you know we talk about the Academy we talk about everything like you know what what it takes to become a police officer what we look for in a police officer and then what the role of police officer is in Arlington and what we actually go out there and do I would say the like one of the favorite things for people is the ride-along because people get to get out there and really see it I mean it's different for us in the classroom to to say to people this is what we do every day and then to go out and ride along and they don't want those blue lights come on and you stop a car you get to really actually sort of feel it a little bit to see what we actually do what is the fee to join is it like just apply and you get in or is there a little fee no there's no fee for the class at all there's no expenses for it you have to apply to get in obviously we do do like a background check we say that the thing you have to sign a thing just to just do a background check to make sure you know but no I mean the biggest thing we that we really look at is that you're a citizen of Arlington just right now only mostly because of space constraints like we can't have everybody you know there's not a room we'd love to but it's not enough room for everybody so one of the biggest things we look at is just that you're a citizen of Arlington we like to try to get those people in here first is there the application deadline is usually between August to it's usually the summer because the Academy usually starts in September sometime it depends we try to look at the holidays so we can finish before Thanksgiving so that it's not it's just tough people have tough enough schedule it is getting here so we want to make sure it's not during the holidays so it's usually September November so we usually put it out in July and the application deadline is sometime in August that has to be in by and then the most recent graduating class just graduated about two weeks ago yes how many was that 20 people yes is there any other programs that residents should look out for yes the other good one that we do several but the another good one that I recommend is the rad program that doesn't run all the times you have to look out for it a little bit but that's the rape aggression defense it's firm for females it's they do a they do a great job of it here it's a nationwide program but we have it here as well and they do a great job of it here awesome thank you thank you very much this was last video with ACMI and you talk of the town and this was Lieutenant Brendan Kinnon with the Arlington Citizen Police Academy and if you're interested look out for more programs