NEW PATROLMAN TAKING ALL THE TRAINING HE CAN

Tyson Estes is getting to know Cape Girardeau one crime at a time.

The 23-year-old from Marietta, Ohio, is about two months away from finishing his on-the-job training to be an officer with the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

Even though he has a bachelor's degree in criminology, Estes needed 12 weeks in a police academy plus another 12 weeks riding with an experienced officer before working alone.

Estes said he'll take all the training he can get, since the street offers more practical lessons than a classroom.

One night last week, he followed his training officer, P.R. Kesterson, into an abandoned building to look for a homeless man. The dark made searching hard, but they were able to find a homemade knife. He said it was the first time he'd been scared on the job.

"If he had that knife and was ready to use it, you don't know what else he might have," Estes said.

Estes followed his fiancee to Cape Girardeau. She is a graduate student at Southeast Missouri State University.

A job in law enforcement was always his career choice, he said, but the city's offer to repay his police academy expenses made the department more attractive than other law enforcement agencies.

"I figure I'll be here four years anyway," Estes said. "You need at least that much experience before you can move up."

Estes is getting more comprehensive training than past applicants. A training program designed by Kesterson is being used for the first time this month.

The program, broken into four phases that gradually increase an officer's independence, has been developed by Kesterson using training models from police in Georgia and Arizona.

"Two years ago all we had for guidelines as field training officers was a checklist of places in the city," Kesterson said.

By the final phase, the applicant is driving his own patrol car with the trainer following in another car.

"At that point, I'd only intervene if there was an issue of liability or danger to life," Kesterson said.

Riding with Kesterson so far has been beneficial, Estes said, since the officer is well trained in several aspects of police work, including evidence gathering and evaluating drunk drivers.

Kesterson has told Estes what a driver's blood alcohol level would be before testing on several occasions.

"He'll look at a guy we stop and say he'll blow a 2.3 or something on the Breathalyzer, and then he'll be right," Estes said. "You and I can look at someone and say he's drunk, but to actually say how drunk is something else."