|
|
| County gets a boost from SO reserves |
| By triplicate.com - Anthony Skeens |
| Published: 11/01/2011 |
|
The Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office reserve program is boosting public safety services in the county. Thirteen reserves in the Sheriff’s Office currently respond to calls and provide backup to deputies and dedicate thousands of hours of service to the county — for free. There was a big push by Sheriff Dean Wilson, Pelican Bay State Prison Warden Greg Lewis and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employee Kurt Cooke to boost the reserve program in 2007, when it had only three reserves. “I view it as a necessity in our department,” said Wilson, whose office has 34 sworn officers. “Without it, we’ll have much less service to our community.” The three men worked to get a training class for potential reserves at the local College of the Redwoods branch in 2008, which graduated 17 of the 27 people who began the class. They joined the Sheriff’s Office upon graduation, but some of them have been reassigned or transferred to other prisons — a majority of reserves are Pelican Bay employees. The class ran from June 2008 through March 2009 and required dedication from the students, who had full-time jobs and paid for their own tuition and equipment. “I enjoy giving back to help the community,” said Cooke, leader of the reserves. “Everybody here loves doing it.” There are three levels of reserves. Level 3 reserves perform mainly administrative duties. Level 2 reserves are able to patrol and respond to calls as long as there is a sheriff’s deputy or Level 1 reserve present. Level 1 reserves have virtually the same abilities to enforce the law as sheriff’s deputies and are able to drive alone. Cooke, who is a Level 1 reserve after spending every weekend and two nights per week for nine months to become certified, has been a reserve for about 20 years for the Crescent City Police Department and Sheriff’s Office. A couple of Level 2 reserves will be heading to Eureka to take a course to attain Level 1 status. The class isn’t available in the county, so they will be using about three months of vacation time, paying for the classes and their own lodging. Since 2009, the reserve program has contributed 7,000 hours to the community on marijuana eradication operations, support for holidays such as the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve — when calls for service at least double — responding to disasters and helping with routine patrols. All of them are on-call volunteers and eight of them work at Pelican Bay. Read More. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think