In a county often labeled a “bedroom community,” four young Carroll natives who graduate Friday from the law enforcement academy say they want to stay and work there for the rest of their lives.
“Rather than living here and working somewhere else, I?d like to stay because it will be more like helping your own,” Phillip Lawrence, 23, of Taneytown, said Wednesday as he sat in the dining hall of the Public Safety Education and Training Center in Sykesville.
Lawrence and his fellow recruits ? Jonathan Berry, of Mount Airy; Jeremy Holland, 21, of Upperco; Brittany Powell, 20, of Hampstead; and Brant Webb, 35, of Thurmont, Frederick County (who graduates June 30 from the Western Maryland Academy in Hagerstown) ? represent the Carroll County Sheriff?s Office?s largest graduating class in three years.
They may not have guns in their holsters or badges on their chests yet. But the four Sykesville academy recruits ? all of them first-generation law enforcement in their families ? saythey are ready to move on after six months of air-pellet gun scenarios to start 10 weeks of real-life field training.
“There?s nothing like when you see someone pointing a gun at you for the first time,” Berry said, referring to the simulations when instructors and volunteers test recruits? split-second decision-making.
The recruits? instructor, Cpl. Bob Letmate, a retired Baltimore City policeman and one of the original city SWAT team members, said his students are going to have to be tough.
“A lot of people look at police and go, ?They?re a little hard,? ” he said.
“But they can love and feel, so it?s a safety valve. They wouldn?t make it a month on the streets if they didn?t look, act and play hard.”
