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'Police Academy' for Senior Citizens
Starts Friday
By Brendan Berls, New Jersey Herald
September 8, 2005
Local senior citizens will begin training Friday at the Sussex County citizens' police academy.
It will be the first of 10 weekly sessions designed to acquaint the seniors with the county's law enforcement apparatus. The idea is to have them educated and active in preventing crime, especially against other seniors, in their communities.
"Seniors have a lot of time on their hands, and we want them to be vigilant in their neighborhoods," said Mary Lou McCutcheon, director of the Sussex County Office on Aging, one of the three agencies that oversees the program, dubbed Sussex County Triad.
Now going into its third year, Triad (which has its counterparts at the state and national level) is a partnership between the office on aging, sheriff's department and the Sussex County Chiefs of Police Association. The free 10-week program will teach the seniors about personal safety and organizing neighborhood crime watches, and will include demonstrations on the various law-enforcement programs and other services available in the county.
They will be taught about suspicious things to look for in their communities, and will know who they should call to report anything out of the ordinary.
"We want to educate them as to what the police actually do," said Sgt. Terry Hespodar of the sheriff's department, who will direct the classes. "It will help them put a face to the officers and the departments."
Officers will demonstrate the sheriff's K-9 and HazMat units, and local police chiefs will give talks on issues such as fraud and home security, Hespodar said.
Once the seniors have completed the 10-week program, the seniors will receive certificates identifying them as Triad members. Hespodar and McCutcheon stressed that the program is more than a simple neighborhood watch; the seniors also take part in community programs like the Earth Angel Project, in which they bring gifts to lonely senior citizens at Christmas.
Current Triad members, numbering in the dozens, also volunteered their time at this year's state fair in Frankford and also helped out in the TopOff terrorism drill in the spring.
"We really are very well-prepared for a small county," McCutcheon said.
The Friday classes will all be held at the Sussex County Fire Academy, on Morris Turnpike (County Route 655) in Frankford, near the main branch of the county library.
They are free, and registration is still open to all county residents age 55 or older, Hespodar said.
Friday's session will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; the nine subsequent sessions will run from 10: a.m. to 12:30 p.m. To register, or for more information, contact Hespodar at (973) 579-0888.
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