NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center in Reno County near Yoder has a clear mission, but it is using updated methods to accomplish that.
According to Kansas Statute 74-5603
"The purpose and function of such training center shall be the promotion and development of improved law enforcement personnel and procedures throughout the state, and the training center shall offer to qualified applicants, as defined in K.S.A. 74-5605, and amendments thereto, such programs and courses of instruction designed to fulfill this end. No person shall enroll in a basic course of instruction at the Kansas law enforcement training center unless the person holds a provisional law enforcement certificate."
As is true at every level of education now from kindergarten through college, technology has changed the way policing works, even for students that are just learning.
"Technology in the classroom, each student has a laptop," said Alvin Sowers, Associate Director at KLETC. He thinks of himself as kind of the day to day administrator for the school."This generation learns from laptops, because that's what they did. You have to use a computer to be a cop these days. That's just part of it. We've gotten a lot of feedback from our customers, our agencies, that tell us that the technology work that we're doing is paying big dividends for the agency, as they know how to use the computer, so they don't have to work so hard at the IT stuff, because they've got some of it here."
Senior instructors at the school are able to keep up with each class so that they can have multiple different classes going on at the same time.
"Each class has a coordinator assigned to them," Sowers said. "They take care of their day to day operations, or their day to day needs and those class coordinators are selected as mentors. Those mentors also model the behavior that we expect out of our officers, so it's a two-way street there. We're teaching them and modeling for them and then we expect them to go out and do the same thing in the communities in Kansas."
The day Hutch Post was there, there were several field training tests going on with different classes, as there are usually five classes in session at a time, starting every three weeks, with the goal of getting 17 classes through in a year.
One trainee was doing a building search including cuffing a person and then that person, also a trainer, explained to the officer after finishing the scenario, what they were unclear about in their instructions and a separate instructor explained how the handcuffs should be applied to cause the least pain to someone who needs to be cuffed.
"You're allowed now to progress and learn, maybe, one way to handcuff and next week you'll learn a second way and a third week you'll learn another way," Sowers said. "We just keep progressing to where, at the end, they can use any of those skills based on the situation presented."
At the same time, brand new students who were just entering the academy that week were learning the basic rules for firearms safety on campus (they are not allowed to carry their service weapons generally, only when at the practice range).
In another class, a former member of the Sedgwick County District Attorney's office was going over information for a class on the things they need to think about when preparing to testify in court, including any conflicts arising from incidents of untruthfulness, criminal convictions, candor issues, or some other type of issue placing their credibility into question, so called Brady or Giglio material.
Another class was on the school's driving course, learning how to properly conduct both a DUI traffic stop and, separately, how to respond to an accident where a victim needs a tourniquet to stop bleeding before EMS can get there. Stop The Bleed training is standard for all officers now at KLETC.
"That training is incorporated very early on and then used throughout," Sowers said. "They will have a range exercise, too, where they'll put tourniquets on. In the middle of class, an instructor might say, you've got 10 seconds. Get a tourniquet on your right arm for a bleed, so you get that startle effect of, oh, what's going on?"
They also teach the officers how to deal with the physiological response of having the lights and siren on when it is needed for a call.
All of this is in addition to work on the shooting range and in the classroom and in mock force scenarios both electronic and in person.
For KLETC Executive Director Darin Beck, it is important to get the message across to new recruits that policework, though it is a heavy responsibility, it is a noble profession.
"On the national media, or on social media, you're seeing police, frequently, at their worst," Beck said. "You're seeing them do things that are frankly, shocking to everybody. When that is the narrative, then, when you're trying to explain to students and to the community and to everybody who will listen, that law enforcement really is about keeping people safe. Fundamentally, protecting people's rights. That's a hard sell."
Law enforcement has the capability to do heroic things, but because of the power they wield, they also have the capability to do horrific harm. That's why teaching the importance of integrity from the beginning of an officer's career is absolutely paramount. New officers generally come from a few paths.
"We have two different groups," Beck said. "One is that group of young people who are looking for a career field, one is that group of people who has been in another career field, whether that's military or whether that's any other profession. They want something different. They want something more meaningful in their lives, and so they switch to law enforcement."
One of the big recent accomplishments is that the academy has gone from a wait of about six months from the hiring of an officer to their time at KLETC down to three weeks, so if agencies need to hire new, regardless of their size, they aren't waiting too long to get officers ready to serve.
KLETC is moving beyond just the basic training piece, though, as it prepares to help officers at every stage of a career.
"We lay the foundation in basic training," Beck said. "One of the areas where we are changing is, we are trying to create a scaffolding for the rest of their career, so that they continue to go through training with us, because the profession is constantly changing. I gave an example when I spoke the other day of AI. I have no idea how criminals are going to use AI. I know that they are going to use AI, but I don't know yet what we need to be training officers to use AI for, so I say, stay tuned and make sure you're continuing to come back to continuing education classes, because we're going to be offering classes at some point in criminal uses of artificial intelligence."
Whenever people can communicate, crime can occur and being ready for what's next is the job of the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center. That is why the Kansas Board of Regents approved a $250 million expansion of the campus in 2021.
New training facilities eventually hope to include an indoor firing range, a defensive tactics building, a tactical village, a scenarios building, an administrative-welcome center-professional development complex, a multipurpose event facility, and expanded support facilities.
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