Citizens Academy Gives Look at Police Department

The New Port Richey Police Department is starting its new Citizens Academy program next month.

The free weekly academy will give residents a look at how the department works. You can meet the police chief. You can learn a lesson from a detective. You can meet members of the SWAT team and K-9 officers.

The academy, the department's first, is slated to run once a week for six weeks. The first session is Tuesday, Oct. 4, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“It’s a very good way for a community to get to know the police and the police to get to know the community,”  said officer Greg Williams.

Beside teaching about the many facets of the department, Williams said the academy helps residents become better witnesses ands more vigilant citizens.

At the end of the academy, participants get a photo with police chief Jeffrey Harrington and a certificate showing they completed the courses. Partiipants also get a t-shirt and ball cap.

The police department received help launching the academy from  former Clearwater police officer Carol Schmidt. Schmidt is a New Port Richey resident and is acting as a volunteer consultant for the department.

Injured in a car accident and taken off the street, Schmidt became the Clearwater Police Department’s volunteer coordinator more than a decade ago. She launched the Clearwater Police Department’s core volunteer program and citizens police academy in 1999, she said.

Volunteers at the Clearwater Police Department do office work, patrol parks, perform traffic control, act as chaplains and complete the work of a quick response team, which assists with crashes, missing person searches and some major incidents.

The Clearwater Police Department’s Volunteer program, specifically its park patrol, was one of 18 programs featured in 2009 in Volunteer Programs Enhancing Public Safety by Leveraging Resources, a resource guide distributed nationally to law enforcement agencies by Volunteers in Police Services.

Schmidt is also helping the New Port Richey Police Department create a separate volunteer program it plans to implement later this year, Williams said. Volunteer duties could include clerical work, marine patrol and traffic control.

The department is now accepting applications, Williams said. 

If interested in the academy or the volunteer program, contact  Williams at 727-841-4550, ext. 134.