Expert: Chris Wagoner - 2/4/2008

Question
hi i am zach i am 16 and i live in western nebraska i was wandering if you could give me information on wut education is needed to become a police officer and wut requirements are needed to be met. i dont know anything about this subject. if you could give me as much information on a facility near denver colorado i would really appreciate it. i really have little to no idea wut is needed to become an officer all i know is that i went down some bad roads and now im living with the consiquences of my decisions every day. i havnt been to court for anything and i have never been charged with anything i am just in my local small towns file system as somewhat of a juvenile delinquent.  not to mention i have a bad reputation. i have realized though that i need to change and i have quite alot just in the past month. still i have to prove myself every day and i realize that its our decisions that make us who we are and i have made the decision to give back to communities and protect innocent people. i think that a carrier in law inforcement would be best becaues i want to make a difference in the lives of others and i want to protect the public from those that would harm them. so in short if you could give me all the information you can on an academy or other facility near denver colarado i would appreciate that. also i would like to know what kind of grades i need to be getting and what skills would be best to have before entering an academy or school. i was wondering wut is needed to become a swat team member also. well thanks for your time.

Answer
Hi Zach!

Glad to hear you want to be a cop, its a great and rewarding job.

First and easiest, get good grades, stay away from any drugs, keep your driving record clean and stay out of police trouble. Thats more important than your grades actually. Be careful who you hang with also.

With at said, here is the website for all of Colorado Police Training: http://www.ago.state.co.us/post_board.cfm?MenuPage=True

From the POST site:
A career in law enforcement can be exciting and rewarding.  However, becoming a Colorado peace officer requires high ethical standards, personal discipline, and extensive training.  To be eligible for appointment as a peace officer, an applicant must first be certified by the Peace Officer Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) Board.  Please note that students in training to be law enforcement officers and those whose certification is no longer current are ineligible to serve as police officers in the state of Colorado.

By law, a person must pass a certification examination administered by the P.O.S.T. Board, a physical and psychological examination, and a background check before he or she may serve as a peace officer in Colorado.

Background Checks

Under Rule 14, every applicant must be fingerprinted and cleared through the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The fingerprints can be rolled by an out of state law enforcement agency as long as it is done on the Colorado P.O.S.T. fingerprint card.  Either the agency or the individual may send the fingerprint card to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, 690 Kipling, Suite 3000, Denver, CO 80215 along with the $39.50 processing fee (certified check or money orders only - made out to CBI).

State law forbids P.O.S.T. certification of any person who has been convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors.  Upon passing the examination and background check, an applicant for Basic certification under Board Rule 10 will receive a certificate allowing him or her to seek employment as a Colorado peace officer.

Additionally, individuals with domestic violence convictions may not be eligible to serve as peace officers, due to federal laws.

Basic P.O.S.T. Certification

In order to sit for the examination, the Board requires every applicant to have:

A high school diploma or an equivalency certificate;
Current first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation certificates or equivalents; and
Have successfully completed, within the two years prior to application, an approved Colorado basic training course.

Here is a link to all the training academies in Colorado:
http://www.ago.state.co.us/post_board.cfm?cpyID=132

And here is the link to the Denver Academy: http://www.denvergov.org/Default.aspx?alias=www.denvergov.org/CivilService

Also you need to be careful and use proper English when e-mailing or talking to police agencies. don't use "wut" as a short cut.

As for SWAT. Many people are under the impression that being a SWAT team member is a full time position. In 99% of departments its not, is what we call a secondary position. That means that you are a patrolman or detective or whatever position you are serving in and a SWAT member second. You carry all the SWAT gear in your assigned vehicle or its carried in the SWAT response vehicle, and when you are needed for a SWAT call out, they notify you and you respond to the location and become a SWAT team member.

That’s how secondary positions work. Other secondary positions in most places are teams like Dive team, Search and Rescue and others like these that are not needed all the time. SWAT teams require a lot of physical and mental discipline.

Before you can apply for any additional position you have to have been on the force a year in some places, more in others. Its up to the department.

Here is a list of just some of the additional units available in the police department:

Aviation Unit
Bicycle Patrol
Bomb Squad
Canine Unit
Child Protective Investigations Section
Contractor Licensing and Fraud Unit
Crime Scene and Crime Lab
Crime Stoppers Unit
DUI Unit
Economic Crime Unit
Evidence Unit
Marine Unit and Dive Team
Mass Transit Unit
Motorcycle Unit
Mounted Patrol
Regional Investigations Division
School Resource Deputy Unit
SWAT Team
Victim Services Unit

So you see there are many other specialty units you can get into.

Hope this answers your questions, look at those Colorado links and they should answer anything you may think of. If not ask me here.

Good luck!!