Thursday’s edition of The Chronicle had a story about Centralia Police Department Commander Stacy Denham’s experience at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. He should be congratulated — getting selected to go isn’t easy.
The story reminded me of my experience back in the fall of 1995 when I went.
Our classes included 200 students from all over the country, and 50 international students.
Classes varied from forensic investigations to dealing with the media during major events. The instructor in the media class was notorious. He’d set you up, and as soon as the lights and cameras came on, roast you for either what you said or what you did not say.
My worst class was a computer class. The lab we used did not have any PCs with Windows — if Windows existed back then. I got through it by using my Mac and could not understand why anyone used a PC.
When I was there, the FBI was still stinging over two recent very controversial events.
The first was the incident at Ruby Ridge in Idaho where a mother holding a baby was shot and killed by an FBI sniper. That sniper was later indicted in Boundary County, Idaho, although I believe it never went anywhere.
The other occurred in Waco, Texas, where an assault on a compound of Branch Davidians ended up with a number of deaths, including children.
Both incidents, to the extent personnel could discuss the details, provided lots of interesting debate about tactics, equipment and processes. To their credit, they were generally pretty candid about what went wrong and what they’d do differently in the future.
One of those items was more cooperation with local law enforcement.
While I was at Quantico, the O.J. Simpson verdict came down and sparked considerable debate. One of our classmates was Lt. Bill from Los Angeles. He was an aid to the chief of police, Darrell Gates, and he had considerable insight beyond what the jury heard during the trial and what the news media reported.
Because of Bill’s insight, we were able to spend valuable time discussing the investigation and trial and ask questions we would not have had access to otherwise.
My forensic crime scene investigation instructor was being transferred back to the field and was really unhappy. Apparently, there was new information that the notorious killer referred to as the “Unabomber,” Ted Kaczynski, was somewhere out west. He and a team were being sent to find him.
The agent was quite upset he’d be sent out to the middle of nowhere to hunt for this guy. He called it a massive waste of resources.
But this was an active investigation and something our class had the opportunity to discuss.
Later, the Unabomber was arrested out west, so maybe it wasn’t a waste after all.
But it was the international students’ perspectives and experiences I found most interesting.
In Japan (at least in 1995) officers didn’t carry any guns, just a long stick they could use very effectively.
If they needed firearms, they called for a war wagon to bring them.
The Bulgarian officer, during a discussion about criminal recidivism, said they didn’t have any. That seemed pretty impressive, but when pressed, he said either they were in prison or executed for their crimes.
I guess that works in a country like that, but for most of us it seemed extreme.
During my time at Quantico, I sometimes questioned the value of parts of the program, which by the way was completely paid for by the FBI.
Why, for example, was an FBI agent teaching about community policing? That didn’t seem like something they’d have much real life experience in.
But after I came home and had time to think about my overall experiences, associations, friendships and contacts, I was certain it was helpful.
Sounds like Commander Denham did too.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.
