New Police Academy To Open

Wednesday, June 6th 2007, 9:17 pm

By: News On 6

A new state law will allow an eastern Oklahoma city to create its own police academy. Senate Bill 920, recently signed by Governor Brad Henry, permits cities with populations of 65,000 and larger to have academies. Until now, new Broken Arrow officers had to travel to the CLEET Academy in Ada. The News On 6â€™s Chris Wright reports now, they can train at home.

Broken Arrow Police will soon be staying in BA to perfect their shooting skills. Formerly, new officers from smaller cities had to complete their 320 hours of training at the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training Center. But a new law will put an end to that.

"It's certainly more convenient,â€ said Broken Arrow Police Captain Heath Arning. â€œIt breeds an atmosphere that we like to put out to our new officers that this is a family. It doesn't require officers to leave their families to go stay in Ada for that extended period."

BA hopes to have the academy up and running sometime in the next two years. It will complete an upgrade that started with a new administrative and classroom building. Construction recently began on a new firing range.

The final addition to the training academy is a firing range being built. Once it is finished, officers say it will be state of the art.

City officials say staying home will also translate to more training. CLEET requires that officers go through 320 hours of training. Broken Arrow's academy will up that to 600 hours, an increase officials say is necessary.

"The state of Oklahoma is 49th in the nation in hours in training at our basic police academy," said Broken Arrow director of Intergovernment Relations Terri Cleveland.

And Broken Arrow police say no one is more qualified to train new cadets than they are.

"We're going to train our officers here with our own staff and our own resources with the academy provided by the citizens of this town," said Arning.

Other cities that now qualify to have their own academies include Edmond and Lawton. Broken Arrow says the new academy will also serve as a recruiting tool and encourage more people to become officers.

Watch the video: Broken Arrow Getting New Police Training Academy