Three new Leitchfield police officers have been hired.
The Leitchfield Police Department announced earlier this week that Erin Barnett, Kieran Miller and Nathan Hayes have joined LPD.
“We’re proud to have each of you join our team and serve our community with dedication, integrity, and professionalism,” LPD said in a social media post.
The newly minted officers will participate in LPD’s new, two-week in-house training program that concentrates on community-oriented training, legal training, gun care, firearm training, and taser training, prior to attending the Department of Criminal Justice Training program in Richmond.
The community-oriented aspect of the training is intended to instruct new recruits how to most effectively connect with members of the Leitchfield community.
“We want these recruits to learn how to communicate with our community and get to know the people they are working with,” LPD Assistant Chief Ian Renfrow previously told K105.
Additionally, the previous training process placed new recruits in a cruiser in full uniform with another officer prior to the recruit attending the academy. Those days are over.
The mantra at LPD is earn the right to be a police officer.
“Instead of a young man coming in and immediately putting a uniform on and getting in a car with another officer and doing ride-alongs; that’s what we did in the past. Instead of doing that, they are going to be wearing a polo (shirt) and khakis. They will not wear a class A uniform with a patch on it until after they graduate the academy.
“They will learn what it’s like to work and earn the position,” Renfrow said. “And we want to stress to them that this isn’t a job. This is a calling, this is a lifestyle that they have to adopt, and that we work in a community that has asked us to serve.”
Providing the new recruits with a structured environment from Day 1 is also a key component of the new training experience.
“We’re also going to go over financial decisions and retirement (planning); personal life and ethics decisions; use of force situations,” according to Renfrow. We’re going to teach them the computer processes we use, all prior to them going to the academy, to start them with some structure that we haven’t had in the past.”
Many times, young officers are erroneously fixated on what they perceive to be the excitement of the job; the adventure, the thrill of the hunt and the satisfaction of the capture. But that mindset is being left behind, courtesy of LPD’s new training standards.
“They’re not here to be super-cop, they’re not here to lead in arrests. They are here to serve the community that they live in,” Renfrow emphasized.
New officer makes major arrest
The first LPD officer to undergo the agency’s new training program and graduate from the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training program, Officer Caden Jennings, made his first major arrest over the weekend.
As K105 reported, on Saturday night at approximately 7:20, Jennings, who graduated from the training academy in mid-January, and Officer Jeff Jackson, observed a Ford Focus “traveling at a high rate of speed on Cave Mill Road turn onto Tara Woods Drive,” according to the arrest citation.
The ensuing traffic stop resulted in the arrest of a Leitchfield man, 38-year-old Casey A. Johnston, on 15 charges, including trafficking in a controlled substance (methamphetamine), two counts of felony wanton endangerment, possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor (illegal controlled substance, juvenile under the age of 16), third-degree unlawful transaction with a minor, and DUI among several other counts.
To read the full story, click here.
(Photo l-r: Newly hired LPD Officers Erin Burnett, Nathan Hayes, Kieran Miller, courtesy of the Leitchfield PD)
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
