Maya Lau

maya.lau@shreveporttimes.com

Many assume police officers are rigorously trained before being allowed to patrol the streets.

But drive through rural Louisiana and it's possible to be stopped by a law enforcement officer who's never experienced a day of police academy and instruction on use of force, stressful scenarios and physical fitness that comes with it. Sometimes, an eight-hour firearms training and on-the-job guidance is all an officer gets before starting work as a salaried, gun-toting, arrest-making officer.

Due to a permissive aspect of state law, a hodgepodge of different standards can crop up from one small agency to the next. It's a pattern experts say puts police departments, and the public, at risk.

In the small, often poorly-funded townships that connect larger cities such as Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, many police departments take advantage of Revised Statute 40: 2405, which allows full-time officers to serve a year before finishing academy and obtaining their Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST) certification.

Officers working part time (39 hours a week or fewer) are not required to attend police academy, which typically lasts around 16 weeks, even if they work under such an arrangement for years on end. And some departments simply violate the law, sometimes failing to send full-time officers to the academy, according to Capt. Kenny Sanders, one of the state's top police trainers and director of the Caddo Sheriff's Regional Academy.

"It scares me to think that my wife and daughter are cruising the streets of Louisiana and there's an officer that may pull them over on the road on a traffic stop and he's totally untrained," Sanders says. Cadets from 10 parishes and some 110 agencies in Louisiana attend the academy he oversees.

Large city or parish law enforcement agencies generally can afford to send new hires directly to an academy, and do so. But small municipalities, where the tax base is less robust, sometimes wait before investing in the training.

When towns fail to properly prepare their police force, it's unfair to the officers and to the community, says Anthony Radosti, vice president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a New Orleans-based watchdog group. He also served as a New Orleans police officer for 23 years.

"Something could go deadly wrong," he said.

It's hard to pinpoint the number of employed, uncertified officers in the state, according to Bob Wertz of the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement, the organization that oversees POST.

But a look at the most recent class at the Caddo academy provides a snapshot: of the 40 cadets, 27 never attended academy but were already working as law enforcement officers.

Sanders says every class includes at least a few who have already been working as officers. Some pipe up and admit they've served as full-time officers who have somehow gone undetected for several years without going to an academy, he said.

This year's new cadets included some from Vivian, which has 17 full-time officers; Ringgold, with four full-time officers; and Coushatta, which employs eight full-time officers.

Lt. Melvin Ashley, patrol supervisor and training officer for the Vivian Police Department, says the one-year window is used as a test period to see if new employees are worth the investment in training.

"As a small town, we don't have the type of budget to send somebody (only to find) we wasted that money," Ashley said.

When asked why his organization takes the risk of putting an uncertified officer on the street, Ashley said rookies are accompanied and taught on-the-job by veteran officers, who then determine when the new employee is ready to patrol alone.

There's no minimum amount of time for that training, he said. When responding to a call, new officers are met by experienced officers and also must receive firearms training.

POST administers an eight-hour pre-academy firearms training which includes qualifying with a weapon, according to Wertz. There is a minimum of 40 hours in the basic POST firearms training cadets go through in academy.

Representatives of the Coushatta and Ringgold Police Departments described similar arrangements as Vivian for new officers, emphasizing that rookies are monitored by experienced agents.

"If they're not trained, they're a danger to the civil populace. They're armed and they have biases just like we all do," said Henry Walker, a Shreveport civil rights attorney who regularly worked on police misconduct cases when he was president of the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"It's a recipe for disaster," he said.

Radosti cautions that small departments are still exposing themselves to serious liability issues by putting uncertified officers on the street even if they're accompanied by a veteran.

Rookie officers are "there to observe, learn and follow proper instructions. If he winds up in a foot chase, he could be separated from the other officer and he could be called on to make decisions that a trained officer should be making," said Radosti. "If an explosive situation occurs, he may be put in a situation he's not trained to handle."

If accused of a federal civil rights violation following an excessive use of force complaint involving an untrained officer, a department would likely have a tough time defending it in federal court, he says.

"It only takes one incident to make all the money you've basically saved by holding off the training go down the drain," said Radosti.

Twitter: @mayalau