Caleb Owen Konopa of Winchester is among 31 new troopers to join the Virginia State Police, according to a VSP media release.
Virginia graduated its 137th generation of troopers on Friday at the State Police Training Academy in Chesterfield County. Gov. Glenn Youngkin addressed the graduates.
The new troopers have received more than 1,300 hours of classroom and field instruction in more than 100 different subjects, including de-escalation techniques, strategies to assist people in mental health crisis, ethics and leadership, fair and impartial policing, constitutional law, emergency medical trauma care, and public and community relations, the release states. The members of the 137th Basic Session began their 28 weeks of academic, physical and practical training on June 30.
The new troopers hail from Virginia, as well as Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York and the countries of the Dominican Republic and Egypt.
For their final phase of training, each trooper will spend an additional six weeks paired with a Field Training Officer, learning his or her new patrol area.
Konopa has been assigned to Albemarle.
(1) comment
A few weeks ago, this publication reported that a new VA State Trooper graduated from an abbreviated training program with 300 hours of training. This candidate graduated with 1,300 hours of training in over 100 different subjects. No wonder policing in America is in shambles. Time to anty-up and start putting police officers through rigorous high standard training academies where they don't just "cover" 100 different policing topics, but actually "master" it before they graduate. As we all know now, policing in America is broken and the best way to fix it is to reform the standards. Time to put the same highly qualified officers on our streets as the US military puts on the battelfield. No shortcuts, no badges, no guns until mastery has been attained under the auspices of rigorous academic and physical standards.
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