Citizen's Academy Students Learn About How Cops Do Their Jobs

The Columbia County Sheriff's Department's new educational program helps community members gain a better understanding of law enforcement.

Story and photo by Ken Graham

If you lose control of your car and skid off the road, don't think that the investigating officer won't figure out how fast you were going. He'll figure it out. And if you run a stop sign and have a collision, don't lie about what direction you were driving. If the investigating officer is Washington State Patrolman Rocky Miller, he'll definitely determine the truth.

During a recent class session of the Columbia County Sheriff's Department's Citizen's Academy, Miller, a Dayton area resident and one of the WSP's top accident investigators, gave a presentation on how he determines what happened during a collision. "Cars are like billiard balls," he said. "You can predict pretty accurately what direction they'll go after they hit." And so, working backwards, Miller can also accurately establish what direction two cars were going before they hit, based on where they ended up.

During the presentation, Miller also described how he can determine how fast a car was traveling based on skid marks. By measuring the length of a skid mark and factoring in the stickiness of the surface (the "coefficient of friction"), Miller can do a little math and accurately estimate the vehicle's speed when the brakes were first applied.

This year's inaugural Citizen's Academy was established by Columbia County Sheriff Walt Hessler to improve communications with community members and to help give his department a better image in the community. He asked dispatcher Tim Quigg to research Citizen's Academies put on by other law enforcement agencies and then organize the local program. Funds for the program were made available through the state of Washington's 911 Public Education Program.

Quigg is the Academy's coordinator, and introduces each class session. He spent many hours developing the curriculum for the academy and lining up speakers. "The response has been excellent," he says. Quigg says that the 20 slots for the first group filled in just a few days.

Hessler says that he hopes one of the outcomes from the Citizen's Academy will be that some of the participants will become volunteers for the Sheriff's department. "We often use trained volunteers for traffic control at events like All Wheels Weekend," he says. The Sheriff's Department also makes use of Reserve Deputies, who fill in when extra manpower is needed. "Some of our academy participants will hopefully want to become Reserve Deputies," says Hessler.

The Citizen's Academy consists of 13 weekly class sessions and covers a broad range of areas relating to local law enforcement. These include:

• Patrol procedures

• Criminal law and court procedures

• Criminal investigations and traffic accident investigations

• Emergency management

• Search and Rescue

• Civil function

• Juvenile justice

• Domestic violence

• Narcotics

• The Reserve Deputy program

• 911 public education

• The Department's Hiring Process

The Citizen's Academy also offers participants a chance to go for a "ride-along" with a deputy on patrol, and to tour the County Jail, communications center and Juvenile Justice Center.

Each weekly session includes guest speakers on their areas of expertise. Besides members of the Sheriff's Department, speakers have included District Court Judge Scott Marinella and County Prosecutor Rea Culwell, along with Trooper Miller.

Hessler and Quigg say they plan to hold more Citizen's Academies in the near future. "We hope to have another one either late this year or early in 2009," Quigg says. "It's a lot of work putting these on, and there are a lot of scheduling issues with the speakers." Hessler says he already has several names on a waiting list for the next Citizen's Academy. "We do a thorough background check on each applicant," he says. "We don't want to be a training program for our former jail clients."

During the criminal investigation and traffic investigation class session, Deputy Mark Franklin talked about some of the procedures used during a murder investigation he was involved in in 2002 (see above article). "It's good for people to know that real law enforcement is a lot different than what people see on TV," he says. "The Citizen's Academy is a good way for people to learn what it's really like."

Left to right: Columbia County Sheriff's Office
Dispatcher Tim Qiuigg, Deputy Mark Franklin,
Washington State Patrolman Rocky Miller.