DULUTH, Minn. — It's a proud and heartwarming time for new Duluth police officers when they reach their goal of landing a job in law enforcement.
A ceremony is held to recognize the achievement. The rookie officer chooses a relative or close friend for the honor of pinning the Duluth police badge on his or her chest.
Eleven officers went through that ceremony at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center last February.
Less than half, only five, are in the department today.
Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said he's "very disappointed'' in that retention rate, and he's changing how newly recruited officers are trained. "We are doing things to address it so that we don't lose as many,'' he said.
But first, what went wrong?
Of the 11 rookie officers, three didn't pass their one-year probation, two resigned and one was fired after a fellow officer reported him for using an emergency light in his vehicle while he was off duty.
Duluth police Lt. Peg Johnson, who oversees the training division, said that one recruit left after a week because his wife received a promotion in her job and he decided not to upheave his family by moving to Duluth. Another recruit left after a month.
"He just decided the job wasn't what he thought it was going to be,'' Johnson said. "Oftentimes, we find that if they seek a law enforcement job in another department, in a smaller community, they are successful. One of the common things for a number of our recruits is that they're surprised at the intensity of the calls for service that they are handling both in terms of volume and seriousness. That is something that they didn't anticipate.''
Dr. Dennis Conroy spent more than 30 years as a St. Paul police officer and now works with police departments as a licensed psychologist and field trainer. He teaches a college-level course, "Human Behavior in Law Enforcement,'' and is the author of the book "Officers at Risk.'' He suggested that no matter what training a rookie officer receives, there is nothing to prepare them for the realities of the job.
"These kids have never seen a dead body. Their grandparents and aunts and uncles are still alive,'' Conroy said in a phone interview Friday. "They've never been hit, they've never been in a fight because of school anti-bullying programs. When you and I were a kid, we got into fights. I learned that I could get hit and I could survive. These kids coming in today don't have that same lesson. I don't think there is anything to prepare them other than to put them in it.''
The rookie officer's new position also affects his or her relationships with others when off the job, which leads to more stress in their lives, Conroy said.
"Their whole world gets turned upside down,'' he said. "People are looking at them differently. Their friends are talking to them differently. They used to go to a party and were just one of the guys. Now they go to a party and what they hear is 'Sshh! There's a cop here.' Somebody else wants to tell them what the State Patrol did to their uncle's cousin's nephew's brother three times removed in Thief River Falls. The point is they never get away from it.''
Last February's class of 11 recruits came from a pool of 120 who were interviewed. Each faced an interview panel made up of a dozen civilians and a half-dozen police officers, Ramsay said. Lengthy background investigations were done on about 20 applicants. A Duluth police officer went to their hometowns and interviewed friends, neighbors, ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends of the recruit. Their credit history was checked as well as any contact they had with police.
The finalists went through two more interviews, one with a police panel headed by Deputy Chief Mike Tusken and a final interview by a panel led by Ramsay and Deputy Chief John Beyer.
"We want the best officers who are going to go out there and treat people well and do everything they can to keep our city safe and that people know that they are getting the best service they can,'' Ramsay said. "We want the best of the best. We tell every group, 'Once you're sworn in, you hit the street. You have a year's probation. That is an extension of the hiring process.' ''
Ramsay said typically 20 percent of the new officers leave the Duluth department in the first year.
One change Ramsay has made in an attempt to retain more officers is his creation of a Duluth Police Academy. The new hires will spend 10 weeks in the academy being trained by officers from all the specialties in the department.
Ramsay said his department's previous training program resulted in less training and more evaluating. Officers needed to find their answers to problems rather than being lectured to. He's going back to a more traditional field-training model with senior officers providing training.
The academy will be a heavily scenario-based program. Police actors will be used to train recruits in domestic abuse scenarios, hostage scenarios, how to de-escalate tense situations without immediately resorting to force — just about every situation an officer faces in the street will be gone over.
"In looking at the best practices of other departments, we've found that those who attend an academy have a retention rate much higher than those who don't use an academy, and they are more prepared before they hit the streets,'' Ramsay said.
Police work attracts a wide variety of candidates. Some might be interested in the power element of the position. Some might be most interested in the social services aspect of helping people. Ramsay said a good cop needs compassion, common sense, character, integrity and the ability to solve problems — mostly traits that can't be taught.
Another change Ramsay is making is to submit new recruits to psychological testing to help evaluate their character and suitability for police work.
"You can train for finding addresses,'' Ramsay said. "You can train on how to write a report, but you can't train character. By testing that element in a psychological test we can make sure that they are suitable for police work before we invest time and money into them.''
The police chief speculated that witnessing the aftermath of a suicide might have had something to do with one February recruit resigning. He thought back to some tough situations he has faced in his own career.
"You see terrible things,'' Ramsay said. "You see suicides. You see people killed in auto accidents. You have to give people death notifications. The most painful time in my career was spending time with a lady who had been married 60 years and her husband was dead in the next room and I heard every story about him. It was torturous. I just about cracked. We deal with terrible things. We deal with people who would kill us in a heartbeat, who spit in our faces. This job is a test of how well you can control yourself.''
Eleven new recruits join the Duluth Police Department on Jan. 16. Their swearing-in ceremony will be held at the DECC in March. Then their test begins.