DePaul: Quality of Academy’s Grads Makes the Difference

NORTH WILDWOOD – The quality of graduates from Cape May County Police Academy sets them apart from others, Thomas DePaul, newly-appointed academy director told Cape May County League of Municipalities members April 22.
The academy on Crest Haven Road is the state’s only municipal residential police academy, capable of holding 48 recruits in the 21-week basic course for police officers. New Jersey State Police Academy at Sea Girt no longer trains municipal officers, he said. Upon graduation, officers are fully certified by the New Jersey Police Training Commission.
While that is vital to the county’s police departments, other counties also send recruits to train at the academy.
Because Cape May County’s population drastically increases in the summer, one of the academy’s main priorities is to produce special law enforcement officers, Class I and Class II, who can bolster county departments’ manpower needs to meet that demand for officers. Class I Special Law Enforcement Officers course is 80 hours. On graduation they have limited enforcement powers. They may enforce laws for motor vehicle violations, city ordinances, petty disorderly person’s offenses and disorderly person’s offenses.
Such a class of 115 will begin training the second week in May and will graduate in time for the season. Only two of the students are from outside Cape May County, DePaul said.
“We cannot have any more if we wanted,” DePaul said, and cited regulations for the limitation.
“Without those summer officers, most (departments) would not survive,” DePaul said. Also without that corps, towns would not have the ability to “sell” themselves as safe communities, he added.
While the county funds the academy, it is the efforts of each police department in the county taking a section of training as its own, then sends instructors to the academy that makes it special, DePaul noted.
“For being such a small county, many would not realize the amount that go through that training facility,” DePaul said. “Last year, over 1,000 personnel went through our police academy.” Those were from 65 law enforcement agencies from around the state, and 20 outside, including some from Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware.
Class II officers, who graduate with full police powers when working, have a summer program that takes 451 hours to complete. It starts the first weekend in May and ends the last week of June. Officers train six days a week. Another Class II training course is 471 hours and begins in December and graduates the second week in May. They attend on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights from 5:30 p.m. until 10 p.m.
When Class II officers graduate, they can apply for 16 college credits through Atlantic Cape Community College.
The academy conducts a course for basic corrections officer.
Agreements with Lower Cape May Regional High School and Cape May County Technical School to train Class I officers have over 40 enrolled this year, DePaul said. The program is attracting “more and more” students each year, he added.
DePaul recalled when he went to the State Police Academy in Sea Girt; Cape May County officers had only a firing range at the County Airport where they went to qualify.
“What we went through was nothing compared to today. It’s completely different. The reason we get so many to look to come to the academy is the quality of officer we put out,” DePaul said.
A “firm believer” in the residential academy, DePaul told the mayors and elected officials, training is more rigorous and recruits learn quicker to act as a team when they are responsible for not only themselves, but also their classmates.
“When you’re stuck there, you have to worry about the next person who left lint by the shower. It’s guilt by association. They have to learn to work together and realize they have to be a team, covering the next person’s back,” he continued.
“That is what we get in Cape May County. We get officers from all over, from Bergen County, everybody they hire comes through Cape May County,” he added.
Meals for police recruits are served at Crest Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The recruit company marches there for three meals, under guidance from of instructors.
Many recruits have never fired a weapon or gotten training in a swimming pool, either at Special Services School near the academy, or at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center pool in Cape May.
While training on the firing range with Glock pistols, some recruits are unaware of gun safety, and will turn around pointing a weapon at the instructor unknowingly. They soon learn correct weapon handing and safety, he noted.
DePaul said some “outside” agencies that use the local academy for training include the Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement Agency, FBI and Secret Service.
Recruits get to experience what it is to have pepper spray shot into their eyes, and what breathing tear gas will do to the eyes and lungs. While experiencing pepper spray, they also must learn to fight, as might be the case with a criminal who uses the material on an officer.
Physical fitness is part of the daily routine, with peer pressure mounting on those who are slow to attain minimum standards.
Recruits are given a pre-physical fitness test before starting the academy, DePaul said. Some are unable to run 1.5 miles or to do one pull-up. “We want you to be prepared,” DePaul said.
As a video played, DePaul explained the instructors’ task on the first day of recruit training, to add as much stress on a recruit as possible. That’s because if they can’t put up with that, they won’t be able to put up with the stress of the job.
Instructors scrutinize each recruit, finding the slightest infraction: a thread on a belt loop, a wallet, a missed belt loop, shoes that lack bright shine and hair not clipped short enough.
DePaul cited a group of graduates from Atlantic City, some of whose peers attended another academy. Their administrators said they could see the difference in training for the better for the graduates from Cape May County’s academy over the others, he said.
“He is a credit to our community and our county,” said league President Joyce Gould when she introduced DePaul at the North End Grill. He is retired chief of Wildwood Crest Police Department. The league’s next meeting will be Oct. 28 under Ocean City’s sponsorship, Gould announced.