By Ken Gordon
The Columbus Dispatch
WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Sam Trzcinski flipped on the police cruiser’s lights, got out of the car and approached a white Honda Civic.
“Good afternoon,” he said to driver Will Haycook. “Were you aware you were going 40 in a 25-mph zone?”
Trzcinski asked for and received Haycook’s driver’s license and registration, then strode back to the cruiser.
In many ways, the scene resembled a routine traffic stop -- except that Trzcinski is 14 and his holster sported a red plastic squirt gun.
The teenager was among 21 “cadets” who this week learned the basics of police work at the Westerville Division of Police youth academy. (Haycook, a former cadet, returned to help this year).
The six-day program, which will end today with a class graduation, is designed to give young people interested in law-enforcement careers a taste of reality.
“It really teaches you a lot,” said Trzcinski, a freshman at Westerville South High School.
“This really kind of sets everything in motion, I guess, so it’s a really good experience.”
Academy participants can later opt to join the division’s Explorer Post, part of a national program involving more than 33,000 teens and young adults, ages 14 to 20.
Such groups -- overseen by Learning for Life, a branch of the Boy Scouts of America -- encompass law enforcement as well as many other career fields, including aviation, communication and engineering.
Other central Ohio police departments -- including Columbus, Delaware, Hilliard, Grove City and Plain City -- and the Madison County sheriff’s office also have Explorer posts, which they use as a direct route for schooling young people in the same basics offered by the Westerville academy: proper techniques for traffic stops, vehicle searches and seizures, building searches, handcuffing and pursuits.
The Westerville academy is open to students entering grades eight through 12.
On Tuesday night, in a parking lot adjacent to the Otterbein University football stadium, Trzcinski and two Westerville 16-year-olds -- Dominick Kocak and Cedric Owens -- took turns practicing traffic stops as Officer Dan Pignatelli monitored their work.
Among Pignatelli’s observations:
* Kocak slammed the cruiser door -- which, the officer said, suggests to the motorist that only one officer is in the cruiser and also pinpoints the officer’s location.
A police officer, he said, should always maintain an element of surprise.
* Trzcinski handed Haycook his license back by reaching into the window with his right hand.
“Never use your weapon hand,” Pignatelli said. “And don’t reach into the window; make them reach out.”
Not every academy cadet (or Explorer member) necessarily wants to become a police officer.
Amanda Phillips -- a Westerville resident, 15, who attended the academy last year -- is considering a military career.
Another former cadet ended up studying computer forensics, recalled Officer Randy Bailey, who in 2008 helped set up the inaugural academy.
Still others have pursued altogether different careers.
Regardless, such instruction can benefit all participants in some way, said Bill Lang, one of three officers who run the Explorer program for the Columbus Division of Police.
“We teach a lot of leadership skills,” Lang said. “You’ll see kids who were shy when they come into the program become very active in the community. They tend to become more respectful and better public speakers.”
In Westerville, the academy has a military tone: Cadets wear matching outfits of dark-blue hats and T-shirts, and tan pants. Each day includes some marching and drilling, with participants required to answer officers with a “Yes, sir” or “No, sir.”
Westerville draws participants through word-of-mouth (many cadets this week said they had friends or siblings who had taken part) and through the city school district.
Prospective cadets must fill out an application and have a grade-point average of at least 2.0; in addition, officers might interview parents, employers, principals and teachers.
The academy is free, with those who later join the Explorers paying a one-time fee of $35.
Although many participants don’t become police officers, Bailey said, recruiting is a primary objective -- as it is for the Explorer program.
Fourteen Columbus police officers, Lang said, are former Explorers.
Officer Adam Willauer, who coordinates the Explorer post in Delaware, got his first taste of law enforcement as an Explorer in Marion County.
And, in Westerville, Bailey hopes that the 5-year-old youth academy soon yields its first officer for the Police Division.
Sam Kennedy attended the academy in 2008; and Braden Peters, in 2009. Both 21-year-olds, who returned to help with the 2012 sessions, are working to become Westerville officers.
“I learned a lot,” said Kennedy, who noted that his academy experience heightened his interest in law enforcement.
He received a peace-officer certification in April after graduating from the Delaware Area Career Center Law Enforcement Academy and has applied to the Westerville Police Division.
“Obviously, it’s not going to be easy,” Kennedy, a 2009 graduate of Westerville North High School, said of the work.
“But I’ve been around this department for five years. I know the codes; I know the people.
“I think it would be a pretty easy transition.”
Bailey would like to see both Kennedy and Peters join the Westerville force, which has 74 officers and typically hires one or two officers a year.
“It’s neat for us to see two young people rise through something I helped develop . . . and to see where they are,” Bailey said.
“We’ve got our fingers crossed, praying and hoping they get the jobs.”
Copyright 2012 The Columbus Dispatch