Local police academy enrollment down, community policing lauded

At the end of the month, 13 people will graduate from the Southeast Missouri State University Law Enforcement Academy.

As recently as 2018, 31 students finished the program.

“Nationally, we’re hurting for quality (police) applicants and have been for 10 to 15 years,” said Academy director Carl Kinnison, the former Cape Girardeau police chief.

Kinnison said the academy has a five-month program producing graduates twice a year.

Since 2015, the average class size is 21.5.

The coronavirus pandemic forced the academy to suspend classes this spring and Kinnison said the number of applications is below average for the next round of instruction beginning in mid-July.

“There an ebb-and-flow in (our) class size that’s not easily explainable,” added Kinnison, who said interest in federal law enforcement work seems steady by contrast.

Students log 800 total hours in the local school, taking classes ranging from ethics, interviewing skills and interrogation process to Taser instruction, medical first-responder and hostage negotiation.

Cape Girardeau County deputy sheriff Josh Erter, a June 2019 academy graduate, said that in the wake of the George Floyd slaying at the hands of Minneapolis police and the nationwide protests that followed, one class in particular stands out for him because of its usefulness right now.

Crisis Intervention Training, or C.I.T., is a 40-hour block taking up a whole week at the Cape Girardeau-based academy.

“We learn words to deflect aggression (in C.I.T.),” Erter said, “and we’re trained to listen and understand because people under stress vent (to police).”

Erter, 23, is a member of the sheriff’s patrol division and said COVID-19 has been the most unexpected part of his job during his one year in uniform.

Unlike in some other parts of the United States, the protests so far in Cape Girardeau County have been peaceful.

“We’re all trying to do some good in the world,” Erter said.

Kinnison has led the academy since 2012, after a 34-year career with Cape Girardeau police.

A Monmouth poll conducted nationally earlier this month showed 71% of respondents indicated they were at least somewhat satisfied with the job performance of their local police, reported the New York Times on June 3.

“Support (for police) wavers occasionally,” Kinnison said, “but police have enjoyed relatively high support from the public, especially silent support.”

More than a quarter-century ago, Kinnison co-wrote the local version of a grant authorized by a Clinton-era federal crime omnibus bill.

The bill brought the Cape Girardeau city police $100,000 in funding for community policing — better known as neighborhood foot patrol.

“Working the same beat every day, building community connections, is the whole idea,” Kinnison said.

One of the former police officers funded by the grant was Charlie Herbst, a current Cape Girardeau County commissioner, who walked a beat from 1994 to 1999.

“My beat was William Street on south,” Herbst said, “and I knew the people. I was in churches and sat on porches talking to residents.”

“It’s a more expensive form of police work,” Kinnison said, “but (community policing) builds trust and relationships.”