PRESS RELEASE
The Palestine Police Department has two newly trained Crime Prevention Officers, after they completed their training at the Harris County Sheriff’s Department last week.
Officer Fernando Nino and Detective David Kassaw completed Phase I of the three phases in the Crime Prevention program taught by the Institute for Criminal Justice Studies.
Both officers have completed coursework and have obtained the basic knowledge of Crime Prevention and the fundamental concepts and techniques for preventing and deterring crime. They have been awarded the skills to conduct home inspections, business commercial security surveys, residential security surveys, and are able to make realistic recommendations to remove or reduce obvious crime risk. Detective Kassaw and Officer Nino advised that the training was fun and interesting, but was very demanding of their time. “There was a lot of homework involved in the class, and it was not uncommon for us to be completing our assignments at 1am”, said Det. Kassaw.
The department will be looking to put their skills to good use in the near future, as Chief Robert Herbert takes over on January 3rd. Chief Herbert, also a Crime Prevention Inspector, will be looking to bring the police department and the community together.
“This is one of the programs that the Palestine Police Department has lacked over the course of the last ten to fifteen years, says Lieutenant Jeff Powell. “We will be developing the policies and procedures for implementation of the program based on input from Chief Herbert and the officers that completed the training.”
Phase II of the training will deal with public speaking in regards to Crime Prevention, and Phase III will allow the officers to train by attempting to “burglarize buildings” to find if they are actually secure. The department is planning on continuing the officers’ training later in 2012.
