Some new faces are patrolling the streets of Prince William County.
Twenty-seven new recruits graduated last week from the Prince William County Criminal Justice Academy. Twenty-six of those recruits will hit the streets as patrol officers for the Prince William County police and one will join the Prince William County Sheriff’s Office.
All of the recruits completed a 24-week course with classes on firearms, use-of-force decision making, driving, legal affairs, patrol techniques and criminal and traffic crash investigations.
Fifteen of the recruits are assigned to work patrol in eastern Prince William; 11 are assigned to patrol the western part of the county.
For many of the recruits, police work is a family affair. Eight of the new officers have relatives working in law enforcement, according to the police department.
Several of the officers also have military backgrounds. The department said five of the recruits have served in the armed forces.
One of those officers is William Hinzman, the president of the recruit class. Hinzman served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps and has also worked as a police officer in Nebraska, the department said. Hinzman has a master’s degree in judicial administration from Golden Gate University.
The vice president of the recruit class was Brett Tillett. Tillett worked as a special education teacher and at the Prince William County Juvenile Detention Center before joining the police department. He graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in government.
Some of the new officers are multilingual. Three are fluent in Spanish, one is fluent in Russian and one is fluent in Icelandic, according to the department.
