At the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, we are always looking for innovative ways to support law enforcement. We recently opened a training village at the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy (OPOTA) in London and a new laboratory in Springfield. These are two ventures designed to improve education and services, which, in turn, will help peace officers fight crime and return home safely after each shift.
The first phase of a new training village, opened May 9 at OPOTA, will take law enforcement education and preparation to the next level, while the new lab will test drugs for the Springfield area and beyond.
In December 2014, my office convened a citizen advisory group of 16 community leaders with diverse personal and professional backgrounds to take an in-depth look at peace officer training and to make suggestions for improvements. In April 2015, the group completed its report and issued recommendations regarding standards and innovations, including an increase in scenario-based training.
My office assembled a group to research the issue and to visit training villages in Washington, DC, Illinois, Kentucky, and at the FBI academy in Quantico, VA. From that research, we put together plans for the training village in London.
This issue of
Criminal Justice Update looks at the way a new 180-degree simulator and “shoothouse” with live role players and special “weapons” give officers a chance to be immersed in realistic, controlled environments to test what they know and to prepare for dangerous situations without being in harm’s way.
Another threat officers commonly face is the exposure to hazardous chemicals. Drug dealers and addicts are often found to be carrying complex mixtures of heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil, and other synthetic opioids, which can be dangerous to officers who come in contact with them. Our office has warned officers to not perform field testing. When trying to determine what substances were involved in a given case, officers have to submit evidence to a lab for testing.
Also in the
CJU, a story provides details on how a partnership among the Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), the City of Springfield, and Clark County resulted in the opening of a new drug-evidence testing lab.
Fighting the drug epidemic has been, and continues to be, one of the top priorities of my office. The Springfield lab will play a vital role in this fight and will serve as a model of the benefits of partnerships. My office will continue to look for innovative ways to support law enforcement through better training and services. To sign up for OPOTA courses involving the training village, please visit
www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/OPOTACourses.