The new class begins May 1 and meets for 11 weeks on Wednesday evenings. Most meetings start at 6 p.m. and last a couple of hours – though some do go later depending on class participation.
Officer Terry Knechtel runs the program each year and says it’s a chance to see first-hand what officers do every day.
“It’s an opportunity for us every year to bring in members of the community so they can see what professional law enforcement is like it and hopefully answer questions that they may have,” Knechtel said, “despite the fact that what they see on TV and in movies, we're kind of just going to answer any questions that they would have.”
Participants must be 18 years or old with no serious criminal history. A background check will be conducted as one of the sessions involves a trip to the gun range.
Other sessions include training with the canine officer, and the Summit County SWAT team.
“We have a mock crime scene, and we will take them through that crime scene on how we process it,” he said. “We'll do incident command and fire and EMS so that they know that that's a resource that we use. This year, we're adding a drone class so they get to see what the drones use and how it's used in the law enforcement community and what we what we use in the technology level. It's pretty involved.”
Another session will involve a trip to Salt Lake to the Utah Attorney General’s office to try the VirTra training machine in which participats are put into the machine with a 360 degree screen around them.
“You're put in a scenario. You have a laser gun that shoots a laser beam, and you react to the scenario. And there's a gentleman from the Attorney General's office behind you that controls the scenario. We use it as a training tool. I use it as the ability to put people in that situation where we have a high level of stress or anxiety, and they get to experience a little bit of what we do.”
Applications to join are online at or stop by the police department’s records division and pick up an application. There is no cost to participate.
