An after-school student police academy meets every other Wednesday at the Tyrone Area High School and showcases numerous services that police provide for the public. Trooper McGarvey, a community service officer in Hollidaysburg, organized the police academy, and students from both Tyrone and Juniata Valley attend.
“Each week, we bring in different aspects of our department, different members are in specialized positions to talk to the kids about the differences,” said McGarvey. “A lot of them don’t realize that we have a S.E.R.T. team or a canine unit. They just know we run radar out in the road. We try to expose them to all these different things so they can see all the different services that we provide for the public.”
Each police academy class has about 25 students in attendance. The last class was taught on forensics and fingerprints. This session focused on the Special Emergency Response Team and the canine unit. The next class is scheduled to be based on patrol functions, DUIs and the patrol car.
The first guest speaker was Corporal Tomovich, a member of the S.E.R.T. team from Hollidaysburg for almost 11 years. He is also the patrol projects coordinator in Hollidaysburg. Corporal Tomovich went over possible scenarios involving the police and a hostage situation. He also talked about the different roles in the S.E.R.T. team including the negotiator and entry team. He showed the students all of the different police gear that is worn by members of the team, which weighs about 27 pounds when everything is attached to the police vest. He passed around bean bag bullets, a type of small bean bag that can be shot like a bullet to stop criminals without killing them.
For the second half of the class, Trooper Rinker from Rockview in the State College area, joined the students with two police dogs, Bruno and Reno. Bruno is a German short-haired pointer trained to find narcotics, and Reno is a Belgian Malinois trained to find chemicals or other materials involved with arson.
“With accelerated detection, I cover a whole central part of the state up to New York and down to Maryland, out towards Dubois and even the Harrisburg area,” said Trooper Rinker.
Trooper Rinker and the canines are called to any number of places from the central part of the state to search for narcotics or arson. Both dogs are on patrol at the same time with Trooper Rinker, which usually does not happen. However, he has enough experience so that both dogs can accompany him at all times.
For the class, Trooper Rinker taped a packet of pseudo-drugs underneath a desk in the classroom. He then brought in Bruno, and the canine searched the room vigorously until he found the packet of drugs. The dog started to scratch at the desk that the pseudo-drugs were under until Trooper Rinker retrieved them from the bottom of the desk.
Previously, Trooper Rinker served four years in the Air Force special operations unit to work with canines. He was involved in Desert Shield – Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf and was in Panama during the Noreaga conflict.
The students of the police academy are enthusiastic about the program and can’t wait until the next class.
