By Tim Martin, The Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The new silver badge sparkles on Amy Dehner’s deep blue uniform, her reward for surviving 20 weeks of training in the Michigan State Police trooper school.
Dehner is one of 89 new troopers starting work this week across Michigan. The 30-year-old from National City in Iosco County is assigned to the state police post in Mount Pleasant.
Her first shift was scheduled to start at 8 a.m. Monday.
The new arrivals couldn’t come at a better time. The number of troopers assigned to posts in Michigan was at its lowest point in more than 30 years last week, before Dehner and her classmates’ graduation.
“It’s nice to feel wanted,” said Dehner, posing for photographs with friends and family after a Thursday graduation ceremony in Lansing. “The troopers we’ve talked to seem very sincere about wanting to get us out there. They are ready to teach us, but they’re also looking forward to us sharing the workload. They’ve been putting in a lot of hours in the last few years.”
The recruits are the first since 2001. It costs about $5 million to run a trooper school, and Michigan’s budget crunch has made that money hard to come by in recent years.
The result: fewer troopers available for patrols at posts across the state.
There were 1,006 so-called “at post” troopers last week, the lowest number since at least 1970, according to the state police.
Dehner’s class bumps the count up to 1,095. That’s still well below the peak of 1,344 in 2000.
Retirements, promotions and reassignments to desk jobs have cut into the number of troopers on the road at the same time more is being asked of the state police.
The organization was founded in 1917 as a war-time effort to provide homeland security. That’s the same issue increasing the work load for troopers today.
“Over the last 87 years we have come full circle. We are again called upon for homeland security,” said Col. Tadarial Sturdivant, director of the Michigan State Police. “Much has changed in this time, but much has remained the same.”
The state police likely could use another class of graduating troopers immediately, but that isn’t likely to happen. There’s currently no money allocated for a trooper school in this fiscal year, which runs through next September.
That adds to the responsibility felt by the new troopers.
“Our resources are still pretty stretched,” said Nicholas Darlington, 23, of Battle Creek, headed to a post assignment in Taylor. “We hope to go in and help any way we can.”
The new class has 79 men and 10 women. Nearly 40 percent have college degrees and one-third have prior law enforcement experience at the federal, county or local level.
Gregory Primeau, 27, worked on the police force in Ingham County’s Meridian Township before joining the trooper class. He said the most essential part of the state police training is learning teamwork - instilled in the trooper school’s 5 a.m. wake-up calls, eight-mile runs and other demanding tasks the recruits endured together.
“People come to this training as individuals,” said Primeau, who originally was from Calumet and now is assigned to the Groveland state police post near Holly in Oakland County. “When you’re out on the road, you have to be a team. This training made us a team.”
Fifteen of the new troopers have served in the U.S. military. Several of them said the trooper school training was tougher than military boot camp.
The training started with 110 recruits culled from 1,600 applicants. Twenty-one of the prospects didn’t finish.
Recruits also were trained in law enforcement ethics, hostage negotiation, criminal law, first aid and other disciplines to go with basics such as firearms, report writing and precision driving.
Duane Zook, 23, of Battle Creek, waited years for a trooper school to open up while serving as a state police cadet.
Last week, he marched lockstep with his classmates in a sea of blue at their Lansing Center graduation ceremony, attended by more than 1,200 people. Then he prepared to leave for his post assignment in Ypsilanti.
“There is a sense of duty and responsibility,” Zook said. “And there is a lot of pride. It’s been a long time coming, and we’re excited about it.”