**Detective Ethan Roberts speaks to students during a Youth Academy class on Wednesday. (Photo by Alex Dominguez)**

DOWNEY — Hoping to further bridge the gap between officer and resident, the Downey Police Department rolled out a Youth Academy along with its established Citizens Academy this year.

Having run for around 20 years, the Citizens Academy peels back the curtain on the everyday life of Downey officers to the residents they serve.

“It’s an opportunity for us to meet residents who have an interest in what we do, and bring them in and share the challenges of the job and the intricacies of the profession,” said Police Chief Leslie Murray. “It’s really a way for us to connect with people, and an opportunity for them to feel comfortable here; to see the human side of the people that work here, because normally people see us as the uniform, but it brings that human element to the relationship building.”

The program runs for 10 weeks, every Wednesday for three hours.

“We go into a whole gamut of things,” said Captain Scott Loughner. “We do our narco guys, our gang guys, professional standards who does our hiring. They’ll take them over to our simulator where they’ll do de-escalation scenarios, like a shoot or don’t shoot scenario.”

While there are some lecture elements, the course does include hands-on, up-close experiences.

“It’s not just sitting behind a desk and listening to a bunch of people talk,” said Loughner. “We want it to be interactive, and want them to get as much out of it as they can.”

According to Murray, the program is relatively low-cost for the city.

“It might be a little bit of overtime here and there for some of our personnel, but it’s really not a high-cost program,” said Murray. “The value we get from it is just immeasurable.”

The program is free to participants, although they are required to undergo a background check.

This year, DPD offered a similar Youth Academy.

“We’re really excited about that,” said Murray. “Normally Citizen’s Academy is an older group, it’s often working professionals. The Youth Academy is geared towards kids that are between 14 and 17 years old.”

The Youth Academy runs earlier in the day –from 4-7 pm after school - than the Citizen’s Academy, and has been tailored more towards the age demographic.

While not the primary focus of the Youth Academy, Murray did admit that there was some recruitment opportunity that came along with it, calling it an “added bonus.”

“In addition to it being a good public relations tool, it’s also a way for us to bring these young people in our community into the police station, let them see what we do, because recruitment is always a challenge for us,” said Murray. “I think the younger we get people interested, the more chance they’re going to make good choices as they grow up because they’re going to understand you have to lead a certain type of life to be considered, to get through a background process.

“Here at Downey PD, we’ve had a lot of success in hiring police officers that start in our explorer program. If they start at 14 or 15 with us, they start learning that culture, they see what the job entails, and not all of them, but we’ll get a handful of them that really like the job, like the profession, and they continue on with us.”

The next Citizen’s Academy will begin April 27. Applications are due March 31, though there may be some accommodation available if applications are received early next week. Residents who apply but are not able to join the upcoming class would be considered for future dates.

Murray encourages all to look into the programs and consider participating.

“They’ll get a lot out of it,” said Murray. “Particularly, I’m excited about the youth academy; it’s new, and I would love to see some of our kids from the high schools come and join us.

“It’s actually fun and engaging, and also eye-opening for them. I think it’s just a chance to see that we’re just people too.”

Police citizens academy expands to include teens