Meet Recruit Brad Ingermann on Week One

Welcome to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Blog for the Combined Regional Law Enforcement Training Academy.  Over the next 20 weeks I will write about our experiences, challenges, failures and successes while we train to become the best Peace Officers we can be. 

Our orientation day was July 11 where we got our first look at our peers and the command staff who will become our mentors during this process.  We learned what their expectations are for our appearance, behavior, discipline, fitness, and performance throughout the academy.  Many us of had read the blog from previous academies so we already knew that water bottles aren’t allowed on the desks and that we are expected to address our command staff with appropriate titles.  There was a sense of nervousness and uncertainty exuding from the recruits in the presence of the command staff, which will slowly work its way out in the days and weeks ahead.  We were told to come up with a class motto and a weekly motto, so naturally the first weekly motto became, “Breathe”.

The first day of school was great.  Everyone showed up on time and ready to go.  We were all neatly dressed and eagerly asking the former military personnel for advice about boot shining and formation.  As a group we all owe a special thanks to former military recruits who have done a great job of making our formations look as perfect as possible and understanding the military commands barked out by the Class Leader.  A special thanks to JSCO Recruit Kathryn Yost who was thrust into the position of Class Leader almost immediately due to her previous experience in the academy.  Recruit Yost was selected for and attended the last academy for two weeks before the Military decided that they wanted her for an additional 6 months.  Her brief attendance in the 2013-1 academy gave the command staff the confidence that they could rely on her as the first leader of our class.  She was immediately bombarded with tasks as there were no Squad Leaders appointed yet, so she had to field all of the questions from the group.  By the end of the week she was happy to pass the torch to our new Class Leader, Recruit Sundara. 

As the week progressed we developed a feel for the classroom work that we would be faced with.  Our first class was Intro to Wellness, followed by Ethics, US Constitution and the Organizational Structure of Law Enforcement.  At this point we all probably felt like we were drinking from a fire hose, and then we sat through a day and a half of Judicial Process.  We were relieved to hear that the Judicial Process content would be on next week’s test.  We all managed to do well on our first test and survived the week without any glaring mistakes.

Fitness at the academy is Crossfit based.  Agent Matt Shea, among others, is responsible for our fitness throughout the academy and wasted no time testing our fitness levels.  Almost immediately they began Crossfit Foundations classes and giving us a taste of what a crossfit workout feels like.  Thursday was our first official workout, and my group was lucky enough to get to do “Karen” which consists of 150 wall balls.  Ouch!

Thanks for reading this week’s Blog, and please check back each week for an update of our progress.

Brad Ingermann
JCSO Deputy Sheriff Trainee