- As reported earlier this week, the Wasco Police Department is nearing an activation date of early to mid-March of this year, contingent on whether the department's communication systems get installed.
In the meantime, the department is still training in Wasco and other locales around Kern County. On Thursday, 23ABC spoke with members of the Wasco and Arvin Police departments to see how the collaborative effort is working.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Earlier this week, City of Wasco officials said they have a target date of early to mid-March for the restarting of the Wasco Police Department. In the meantime while they are still about a month and a half from restarting the Wasco Police Department, that doesn’t mean they’re just sitting on their hands. Members of that office are still training, they're just doing it elsewhere in Kern County.
Members of the Wasco Police Department have been in Arvin working alongside the already-established department to get prepared to patrol their own neighborhood. Sergeant Lionel Lopez of Wasco P-D said they've been able to simulate some situations, but there's little substitute for a real-world environment
"It's an opportunity to work with another agency and get to know each other the benefit of being on the street and actually getting the real feel of the what the officers are going to be experiencing and that and having the officers interact with the community members," said Sergeant Lopez.
Wasco Police Chief Charlie Fivecoat said the training his department is doing is not standard procedure for any department, but much of what they’ve had to do to accelerate the timetable from start to finish has been unorthodox.
“We’ve had to come up with innovative and very creative ways sometimes of satisfying at the training requirements, all the equipment requirements for the department, one of the things that we’re doing with our peers in the communities is that we work together. We share resources and responsibilities,” said Chief Fivecoat
Hence the training in other Kern County communities, but when it comes to satisfying training requirements, what all is going into the training? As we reported earlier in the week, the Wasco Police Department is waiting on communications systems to be linked up, and without them, they're unable to do that portion of training. However, the Arvin and Wasco police departments share a few things in common
"We have very similar, if not the same type of systems. So, hopefully learning some of it here and then just do the fine-tuning once we do go active and it'll be seamless."
And Arvin isn’t the only place where this collaborative training has taken place.. In recent history, Wasco Police officers have been training in Delano and McFarland as well.
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:
