AC’s Law Enforcement Academy to conduct 114th graduation ceremony on March 9th

For decades, the Academy at AC has been the lifeblood of policing agencies throughout the top 26 counties of Texas, producing well-trained, newly certified officers who have made positive impacts at an abundance of agencies.

Brandon Williams of Pampa said he decided to attend the Academy after experiencing repeated layoffs as an oil field worker, but now he’s looking for much more than just a new job.

“I was honestly just looking for something with job security,” Williams said. “But this was truly a challenge. I’ve learned so much. There’s a lot of information that you need to know and that you’ve got to retain to do the job right.

“I came in here thinking I’d be happy just as a patrolman, and there is nothing wrong with that, but now I can see myself striving for promotion because what I had before was just a job; I’m all of a sudden looking forward to a career.”

The 114th class is 20 recruits strong. By graduation they will have successfully completed 800 clock hours of training over five months in a variety of areas: defensive tactics, firearms, emergency vehicle operation, crisis intervention, physical fitness, and the Texas Penal Code, traffic law and arrest, and search and seizure.

“This has been a very good class,” Hank Blanchard, Academy training coordinator at AC, said. “This is a pretty demanding Academy, but these recruits became a team almost from the start, and they’ve put in a lot of hard work throughout the last five months.

“I look forward with great confidence to seeing them all working in the law enforcement profession in the Texas Panhandle in the very near future.”

The training provided at AC is particularly effective because the Academy utilizes several guest instructors who are actively engaged in the subject matter they teach — the firearms instructors, for example, are all longtime peace officers with extensive tactical training, many with SWAT experience.

J’Tuan Sanchez is a product of Canyon who joined the army after high school and served as a combat medic. She said the Academy proved to be exacting even for someone with her military background, but the credibility of the instructors helped her stay the course to completion.

“Law enforcement is a career that’s both mentally and physically taxing,” Sanchez said. “You have to make a total commitment to do this, but it’s a great learning experience, and AC gave us truly superior training.

“The instructors we had are not just faculty giving you information,” she said. “They are professionals sharing real experiences. We knew they had been there, done that. I’m proud of my class. We made it to the finish line, and I’m personally very much looking forward to working in law enforcement.”

Members of the 114th Academy: