New this morning, a new program from the Ferguson Police Department aims to teach teens and young adults about a career in law enforcement. In our 5 on your sides, Laura Barchesky talked with several officers about what a difference this can make. Ferguson police officer John Glover says growing up he remembers having two very different opinions about police officers. His grandfather was an officer in East St. Louis for 30 years. I see him run out and the lights on and sirens. I’m like, Oh, I really would like to do that.
However, when I got a little older, um, I had some encounters with police officers. There been a bitter taste in my mouth. That changed when he became a corrections officer and eventually a police officer himself, and he felt called to start mentoring kids and teens out on the job. One teen he took under his wing recently. The young man was in school and he had some things on him that he shouldn’t have had on him and grandmother was just, you know, furious, and we went, she called us because she was just,
I, I can’t deal with it. So since then, um. He had signed up for the Explorer program. Glover helped launch the Explorer program in Ferguson and just started taking applications for young people ages 14 to 20. Chief Troy Doyle says they’ll have an 8 week training course to experience what it takes to be a police officer. You get a chance to ride in a patrol marked patrol car with an officer, actually go out on calls with with an officer so you can see how that individual interacts with the public and what it takes,
how to use the de-escalation tools and things of that nature. Hazelwood police have had a similar program since. 2003, that’s been very successful. Actually, some of our advisers used to be explorers with the Hazelwood Police Department, and there’s a lot of um explorers from our post and other posts in the area that are are police officers or corrections officers or dispatchers. They say these programs get kids on the right path, change their mindset, and give them skills they can use even if they don’t become an officer.
Everybody in law enforcement is not bad. We actually have a lot of pretty good police officers out here that’s here to do what’s right, and we’re looking for people to join the ranks. Well, Chief Doyle says reaching young people in Ferguson is also part of the consent decree following the unrest which he’s viewed as a tool to continue to help the community.
