Sheriff’s Academy Puts Cadets to Test to Make Sure They Can Handle Job : Learning to Face Stress Is Part of Their Training

A dozen training officers, each with a hard body and bulging biceps, marched into the front of a classroom and stared down a motley group of new cadets.

“We look at them like they’re a bunch of sleazeballs,” Deputy John DeAngelis said of the training staff’s first encounter with cadets of the 74th San Diego County Sheriff’s Academy.

Most of the cadets, in their 20s, had no idea how to respond to the icy greeting. They squirmed in their chairs and wiped beads of sweat from their anxious faces.

Cadet George Barrone, 21, said he closed his eyes and prayed, “Lord, no, please!”

Tom Bedsworth, 34, said, “I remember thinking, ‘I’ve quit better jobs than this.’ ”

A prolonged silence was finally shattered when DeAngelis barked, “Attennnn-shunnnn!”

The cadets scrambled to their feet, creating lots of shuffling noise. Notebooks and pens fell to the floor, making the deputies even angrier.

“This program is not a walk-through,” Capt. Dick Reed, head of the sheriff’s personnel division, warned the cadets. “This is an ass-kicking program. You better be ready for us, because you can tell by looking in the eyes of my staff they are ready for you.”

Lt. Dennis Kollar, director of the academy, had even fewer words of encouragement.

“You could be the largest class we graduate, but that remains to be seen,” Kollar said. “The average failure rate is 25% to 30%. There’s no reason to believe that’s not going to continue. For the most part, that’s fine. The people we fail are not qualified to become deputy sheriffs. Look around the room now, because not all of you will be here when you graduate.”

Kollar’s drop-out estimate turned out to be exaggerated. For the 74th Academy, only 10 of 73 cadets (14%) were dismissed or resigned from the training program. Although that is comparable to the San Diego Police Department’s failure rate of 10% to 15%, several sheriff’s training officers criticized modern law-enforcement academies as too easy.

“If we ran this academy the way we did 10 years ago, a lot of them would be gone,” Deputy Jack Strumsky said. “If you made it through the academy (then), you had a lot more pride.”

Back then, law enforcement training programs were patterned loosely after military boot camps. Recruits were humiliated, threatened and punished by being forced to do push-ups. But a growing number of academies--including that of the San Diego Police Department--have abandoned the strict disciplinary approach in favor of a more relaxed environment.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department prides itself on running one of the more stressful and rigorous academies in California. Sheriff’s trainees are yelled at in the early going and required to obey strict codes of conduct and etiquette. They must address their training officers by using the word “sir” at the start and end of every conversation.

“Many of these kids are straight out of school or still living with mommy and daddy,” DeAngelis said in an interview. “. . . Many of them have never been in a paramilitary organization. It’s not like private industry. You have to get used to taking orders.”

On the academy’s first day, Deputy Walter Ogle, a former Marine, paced in front of a line of cadets. He stopped one inch away from a trainee’s face.

“Your shoes are atrocious!” Ogle shouted. “They’re worse than atrocious! . . . Your belt is backward. Take it off and put it on right!”

Ogle then turned to the group. “You had your freebie from me. Anytime one of you screw up, all of you pay the price. The price for me starts at 20 push-ups. I guarantee you will have upper body strength by the time we are finished.”

The cadets dove to the pavement and counted the push-ups aloud.

“Some of these folks look a little stressed right now,” observed Lt. John Tenwolde, director of the Sheriff’s Department’s public affairs division. “Some of them probably won’t be back on Monday. You’ve got to let these guys know this is serious business. We don’t have time for discussion. This is not a democracy here.”

Two cadets did not return on the second day. One of them, a 22-year-old journalism student, said he was interested in working for the Sheriff’s Department as long as he wasn’t required to attend the academy, DeAngelis said. The cadet was sent home.

Law enforcement training officials in California disagree over how much stress is appropriate for police training.

“There is a lot of controversy over . . . using push-ups and running for punishment,” said Bob Spurlock, senior consultant for the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. “We tend not to be too supportive of that . . . It’s contrary to what we’re trying to get them to do. . . . If you punish a student with a lot of physical exercise, you’re not going to encourage them to get into physical training once they graduate.”

Kollar said the Sheriff’s Academy attempts to strike a balance in using physical exercise to discipline cadets. He said that push-ups are an immediate form of punishment that lets everyone know when a cadet has faltered. But Kollar acknowledged that, if such discipline is abused, cadets will develop a negative attitude toward physical activity.

“These people will be responding to emergencies and life and death situations and will become involved in any number of physical confrontations,” said Kollar, explaining the academy’s philosophy. “Our intention is to re-create in a positive fashion some degree of stress so we can make some observations about their ability to operate under stress.”

Unlike the Sheriff’s Academy, training officers at the San Diego Police Academy do not yell in the faces of cadets or order push-ups for disciplinary purposes. Nor do they demand written essays from cadets who show up late or get out of line.

“We’re a moderate stress academy,” said Capt. Jerry Sanders, who ran the Police Academy for the past two years. “We promote a disciplined approach. However, we also make it a positive approach. . . . We want them to feel they can ask questions, get answers and get their concerns out there.

“We don’t want to demean anybody because we’re not running a boot camp. We’re sending an officer out to make a lot of decisions. . . . If we’re force feeding them everything in the academy, it’s hard to make that transition to make those decisions in the field.”

Sheriff John Duffy said that, although there is no place for the “total degradation” of cadets, he does not advocate turning police academies into centers of intellectual debate. Otherwise, academies would produce police officers who “question everything,” Duffy said.

Spurlock said about half of the 33 law enforcement academies in California still retain some form of high stress training: “The environment itself is stressful. There’s a certain amount of stress on a student just knowing that you have to pass a test in firearms or defensive driving.”

Spurlock said the California Highway Patrol and Sacramento Police Department academies, where cadets stay overnight, and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department are considered the most disciplined academies in the state.

When Kollar attended the San Diego County Sheriff’s Academy in 1969, training officers frequently insulted cadets in front of their classmates and demeaned trainees by asking why they hadn’t paid their bills. Today’s academy staff will pull a cadet aside for a private counseling session, Kollar said.

But most cadets in the 74th Sheriff’s Academy rarely saw the sensitive side of a sheriff’s training officer, especially during the first few weeks.

On the first day, DeAngelis laid down a few of the academy ground rules:

“We don’t want to see you in the 7-Eleven store in uniform. If you walk around, wear a sweater or a cover jacket. You can’t go into the 7-Eleven to buy a pack of cigarettes or beer.

“No sunglasses worn on campus. Don’t be keeping firearms around to impress your girlfriends. You will be fired.

“Gum chewing is another thing. That is tacky. We don’t want to see any gum chewing . . . No visitors on campus. No wives or boyfriends. Loud, boisterous, profane conduct will not be tolerated. It will be dealt with disciplinary measures.

“We don’t want to see anyone smoking anywhere on this campus. You should have an ID card at all times, two black ink pens, 25 cents for an emergency phone call. That’s one quarter, not two dimes and a nickel . . .

“We never want to see your hands in your pockets. Get used to it now. If someone slaps you up side the head, you won’t be able to get your hands out of your pocket.

DeAngelis divided the academy into two sections. On the second day, members of the B section performed dozens of push-ups for committing a comedy of errors during their first uniform inspection.

“It’s about time you people realize how important it is to have your equipment all the time,” Ogle said. “You can’t even handle your ink pens. How are you going to handle a badge and a gun? You’re a sorry excuse for any kind of law enforcement officer as far as I’m concerned . . .

“This squad is going to play together and going to pay together. Everybody get down and give me 10!”

After the push-ups, Strumsky said, “You’re a constant embarrassment. Don’t be an embarrassment anymore!”

Many of the cadets who enrolled in the academy were woefully out of shape. During a leisurely 2 1/2-mile run around the Southwestern College track on the first day, several trainees were out of breath, moaning and on their knees.

After four laps around the -mile track, several members of the academy slowed their pace to a walk.

Bedsworth, 34, was breathing so heavy that a deputy became concerned he was having an asthma attack.

“No, I’m a heavy smoker and I can’t quit, unfortunately,” Bedsworth said.

Teri Hartley, 28, held her midsection as she walked around the track moaning in pain.

As the academy chanted “74! 74! We Want More!” on the track, Robert Abel, 38, drew on spiritual resources to get him through the run.

“Keep up the pace, Lord,” Abel said. “74 Praise God. Keep up the pace, Lord. Praise the Lord.”

DeAngelis told the cadets they had no business showing up at the academy.

“I will not send any of you to the field if I don’t think you can cover a fellow deputy out there,” he said. “No slugs are going to graduate from this academy. Not with my name signed to it.”

Out of a class of 73 cadets in the 74th Academy, 49 were hired by the Sheriff’s Department, compared to about 15 deputies for each of the three previous academies. This was partly due to an acceleration in hiring and a recent decision to hold two academy classes per year instead of four, sheriff’s officials said.

Because the number of cadets was one of the largest in department history, the staff anticipated a higher attrition rate than the normal 25%. But only 14% of the 73 trainees who enrolled in the academy resigned or were dismissed. Of those, none flunked the physical agility tests and only one cadet was let go for failing a written examination.

In many cases, cadets had no problem preparing for the exams because their instructors read aloud the test questions and answers during class. (Kollar said that while review sessions are encouraged, instructors are “basically prohibited” from providing answers to the test.)

As recently as a decade ago, cadets were given surprise exams and kicked out if they scored below 70 percent on any test. Today, all exams are scheduled on advance notice and cadets must flunk the same exam twice before being dismissed.

Kollar said the academy exams are easier than tests given in basic college courses because so much more material is covered during the academy. Students must pass 73 tests in an 18-week period.

In one afternoon, a Times reporter passed four of eight exams on the first try without attending any of the lectures or reviewing any of the test material.

Academy officials throughout California are even more critical of new physical agility standards introduced last year by the state law enforcement training commission. Only 5% of all applicants to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department fail the test, which consists of five timed events.

Although every cadet in the 74th Academy passed the physical agility requirements, at least three were in such poor shape that they would pose a danger to their partners on the streets, training officers said.

Norman C. Boehm, executive director of the state training panel, defended the minimum physical agility level. He said the guidelines were based on a UC-Davis study on the physical condition of officers currently working in California. Boehm said that the number of push-ups a cadet is capable of doing has little, if any, bearing on his ability to perform police work.

“We’ve heard from the beginning it’s not tough enough,” Boehm said. “We try to measure what people are doing on the job . . . We felt we could not require more.”