Behind the Badge: Dayton Daily News goes inside police training to see what it takes to be a cop

“Thank you Dayton police” signs were displayed in windows and marquees across the region.

Four years ago, protesters threw rocks and hurled profanity at police officers as they took to the streets in the wake of a Minneapolis police officer murdering George Floyd. Not far from protesters’ memories was the 2014 fatal shooting of John Crawford by Beavercreek police and other incidents.

A Dayton police cruiser was attacked and spraypainted with an acronym meaning “All cops are bastards.”

The years since have featured intense debate over the role of law enforcement in American society, from those shouting “defund the police” to others who shout back “back the blue.” Police departments say they need more cops, while those critical of police say cops need more accountability.

Today, a group of 19 cadets are training to join the ranks of law enforcement through the Sinclair Police Academy. Three are women and 16 are men. Five are Black, two are Latino. Many have college degrees. Some served in the military. A few cadets are immigrants.

“My calling is definitely police,” said Austen Brown, one of the cadets. “I love to help people. I like trying to protect people. And I want to show people that cops do care. We don’t want to hurt people. When the fight’s over, we’re both people, we both have hearts.”

Ethics and Professionalism

There’s a reason the ethics class is the first lecture that kicks off the entire semester of police training and police work.

Officers are considered public officials, and take an oath once they begin their jobs. Police departments have their own codes of ethics and codes of conduct.

“Police are held to a higher standard, whether you like it or not,” West Carrollton Police Chief Doug Woodard told cadets on the first day of lectures.

“I can teach you a class about ethics. I cannot teach you to be an ethical person,” he said.

The class examined cases of officer fraud and abuse, and discussed the idea that cadets may lose friendships over their job.

Over the course of the academy, much of cadets’ education is about the realities of police work as much as practiced skills and learning the Ohio Revised Code. Classes are taught by area police chiefs and officers both current and retired, and their stories and life advice are as useful and informative as the curriculum — in some cases maybe more so.

Classroom work is underpinned by Constitutional principles, particularly the Fourth and 14th Amendments. The 14th Amendment says, in part, that the government shall not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

It’s that last part, “without due process of law,” that governs how police conduct themselves on the street.

“Success depends on your character in police work,” Butler Twp. Police Chief John Porter told the class. “Holding yourself and others accountable is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.”

“Treat people with respect. Be compassionate, yet firm,” he said.

The body of character education Sinclair cadets receive is grounded in the question “Why?”

Why deal with all of this? Why go into a line of work where the only daily guarantee is that you’re meeting individuals on what is usually the worst day of their lives?

‘I want to help people’

Chol Chol grew up in Sudan, but left the country for Egypt due to the country’s ongoing violence. Sudan has had three different civil wars in the last 70 years, the most recent erupting on April 15, 2023.

While in Egypt, Chol and his older brother enrolled at Cairo University, studying law in Arabic.

At the end of Chol’s third year at Cairo, he had an opportunity to come to the United States. He had a choice: finish the fourth and final year of his law degree, or travel to America.

Chol and his brother decided to come to America.

Once in America, Chol wanted to finish his studies at Sinclair, but found that American law (not to mention studying in English) was a completely different experience, especially on top of also working a full-time job.

“It was not the way I envisioned, it was very difficult,” he said. “Full-time school, full-time work, it doesn’t work at all.”

Chol met a police recruiter at a Sinclair employment fair, and learned the job only required a high school diploma, which he had earned in Africa.

“I said, ‘you know what, it’s time,’” he said. “People say, ‘Oh, I want to help people,’ but for me personally, I really want to,” Chol said. “Because I know myself, how to get out of a situation. It’s not always fighting. I can calm somebody down. I have the skill to talk to somebody.”

Chol, now 40, has acquired American citizenship and is mastering his English on his own time.

Shortly after coming to America, his brother suffered a series of mental health crises, which resulted in negative experiences with cops. Chol added that part of his reasons for joining the police academy was to be the change in how police interact with those experiencing mental health issues.

“If the police were engaged in response to somebody mentally ill a little differently than the way they did to my brother, he might recover and not get arrested,” he said. “You cannot force it. You cannot come with power. The first thing you have to do is tell them, ‘We are here to help.’”

Training requirements

The six-month course at Sinclair is one of several across Ohio certified by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission to provide the necessary training for someone to become a licensed law enforcement officer in Ohio.

Sinclair cadets will undergo training on everything from Ohio Revised Code, to report writing, traffic control, interrogations, courtroom conduct, deaf communication, and using drones and patrol rifles. Cadets will be trained on how to use pepper spray and Tasers (and be on the receiving end of both).

As police academies train cadets, the nature of police work is constantly changing, and with it comes new and different responsibilities. Cyber crimes, the ever-evolving war on drugs, mental illness, homelessness and other social ills have become the realm of police to deal with.

Training efforts strive to keep up, sometimes in direct response to public outcry.

After the fatal police shootings of Crawford and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland in 2014, then-Attorney General Mike DeWine pushed for increased training requirements for Ohio police. Ohio law was updated to require cadets to have a diploma, pass a drug test, and meet a physical fitness standard — basic training requirements were increased from 650 to 737 hours.

DeWine, now governor, has pushed for additional reforms including requiring training on implicit bias — recognizing officers may harbor stereotypes or negative opinions of certain groups without realizing it — as well as de-escalation techniques, and adding accountability measures.

Recruiting challenges

A class of 19 is a decent size, said Sinclair Training Coordinator and Commander Joe Niehaus, compared to the usually sparse population of students.

Sinclair also hosts a nighttime police academy, for cadets who work during the day.

Law enforcement jobs have a starting pay higher than many jobs that require four-year degrees. Departments start newly sworn police officers anywhere between $20 to $30 an hour starting pay, per Dayton Daily News payroll project data.

But many departments struggle to recruit. A Dayton Daily News analysis in December found the Dayton police department started 2023 with the lowest staffing level in years, and that was before more than 50 officers retired or resigned. Dayton has its own police academy, and more than half of the most recent class dropped out before graduation in November.

A 2022 investigation by the Dayton Daily News found cities in both Greene and Montgomery counties saw the number of applicants for police officers dwindle in recent years.

“Because of the perceived negative attitude of the public toward the police, and the over embellishment of the national media about this backlash against the police, most young people do not see policing as a desirable profession,” since-retired Xenia police chief Donald Person said. “The irony to all of this is that most small- to mid-sized cities in the Midwest have seen nothing but support from their local communities.”

On a recent day of lectures at the Sinclair academy, the Fairborn Police Department was the latest in a series of local departments to give a recruiting talk to the cadets.

When they asked the class how many of them had jobs already lined up after graduation, nearly the whole room raised their hands. At least 12 cadets already have jobs lined up, and many are even having their tuition paid by the departments they’ve signed with.

‘I can be a cop’

Cadet Brown decided to become a police officer to follow in the footsteps of his father, who served as a military police officer in the Army.

“I wrote him a letter when I was I think in elementary school. It was ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I wrote him ‘I want to be in the military police.’ I ended up in the Navy, but I’ve kind of done everything in his footsteps.”

After serving four years in the Navy, stationed in Washington state, and then working as a ranch hand and hunting guide in Texas for two years, the Springfield native moved back home and has already secured employment as a police officer for the city of Beavercreek.

Fellow cadet Brent Douglas is also a veteran. Douglas spent four years active duty in the Marines, before switching to the National Guard.

Originally from Kentucky, Douglas, 30, moved to the Dayton area, and has already been hired by the Kettering Police Department.

“Down to the core, I enjoy helping people out. That’s just kind of what I get out of life. That’s what gives me the gratification,” he added.

Douglas left the Marines in 2017, adding that at the time, he was relieved to get out of the military, but started to miss the structure, the camaraderie, and the brotherhood that came with the job.

“So I sat down one day and I had this quarter life crisis and I was like, ‘What do I want to do?’ he said. “Well, I don’t want to be a teacher. I tried healthcare. So I was like, ‘Well, I can put all of these together: I can be a cop.’”