June 2023 | Vol. 09 Iss. 06
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ACADEMY GIVES RESIDENTS INSIDE LOOK AT WEST VALLEY CITY POLICE OPERATIONS By Darrell Kirby | d.kirby@mycityjournals.com
I
t doesn’t make them police officers, but it sure gives them a greater understanding of what law enforcers do. Ten members of the public graduated in May from West Valley City Police Department’s Citizens Academy. They gathered Wednesday nights over a span of 10 weeks to learn from police personnel what they do on a daily basis, why they do it, and the training and attention to detail that go into it. The participants come from all backgrounds. Some are grandparents. A couple of people are civilian employees of the police department wanting to know about what their sworn colleagues do. There was a city councilman and a 17-year-old boy considering a possible law enforcement career. They all had a common interest in wanting to know more about how the West Valley Police Department functions, particularly its officers who patrol Utah’s second-largest city. “We expose them to firearms, SWAT, K-9s, to patrol operations. We also introduce them to the case flow that goes through the detective unit,” said Sgt. Gabriel Bier, who conducted the academy. Academy participants learned—hands-on in some cases—police department operations and tactics to address a variety of situations officers are trained to encounter. They fired weapons at a shooting range, and some even volunteered to be on the receiving end of a taser. They sat next to dispatchers and call-takers at the Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center as they took emergency and nonemergency calls and dispatched, coordinated and tracked a countywide network of police, firefighters and paramedics responding to those calls. “This is to create a relationship in our community. This is designed to help us teach the citizens what it is we do, why we do things a certain way, and maybe increase the understanding that they have for our profession,” Bier added. Continued page 15
Local Postal Customer ECRWSS
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Longtime restaurant reopens
Scan Here: Interactive online edition with more photos.
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West Valley City Police Chief Colleen Jacobs congratulates 10 graduates of the police department’s biannual Citizens Academy. It gives the public an in-depth view of how police officers and other law enforcement personnel do their jobs. (Darrell Kirby/ City Journals)
Curbside glass recycling
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Summer events
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