POTSDAM – Four St. Lawrence County students were among nine cadets who recently graduated from SUNY Potsdam's Law Enforcement Training Institute, the College's accredited pre-employment police academy.

They are Tanner Armstrong and Payton Horton, both of Ogdensburg, Blaine Youngs of Hammond, and Riley Martire of Rossie.

The Law Enforcement Training Institute at SUNY Potsdam provides students with the unique opportunity to complete a rigorous pre-employment, state-approved police training as part of their undergraduate curriculum. The cadets celebrated their completion of the program with a ceremony on Dec. 18, 2021.

The cohort of nine cadets graduated from the 15-week program after successfully completing Phase 1 of the New York State Municipal Basic Police Training, which includes 56 of the full 60 components, in Fall 2021. Phase 2, which comprises the final four components, can only be completed by recently hired officers.

"These nine college students are considered pre-employment trained, which means municipal agencies may hire these trainees off their civil service lists and save thousands of dollars. In some cases, as much $20,000 to $30,000. They are simply already police trained. In other instances, where cadets opt to go into other branches of law enforcement, they have made themselves that much more marketable as they now have a police academy on their resume. This has a plethora of value. This year alone, we have had cadets offered positions with Suffolk County Police, Syracuse Police, NYPD, Ithaca Police, the St. Lawrence County Sheriff's Office, Oswego City Police, Federal and State Corrections, New York State Police, Washington DC Capitol Police, and a police department in Pennsylvania," said Police Academy Director Sonny Duquette, a retired St. Lawrence County Sheriff's Office Detective Sergeant.

Alongside the cadets, Hired Peace Officers John Barney and Robert Van Deusen (Franklin County District Attorney's Office) and Deborah Fitzpatrick (School Resource Officer, St. Regis Falls Central School) received their NYS DCJS/OPS Special Patrolman Certifications during the Fall 2021 police academy at SUNY Potsdam.

As a New York State-accredited police academy, SUNY Potsdam's Law Enforcement Training Institute offers instruction in defensive tactics, emergency medical services, emergency vehicle operation, applying field sobriety tests, processing crime scenes and a plethora of other training topics. To learn more, visit http://www.potsdam.edu/academics/appliedlearning/lawenforcement.

SUNY Potsdam offers one of the very few police academies in New York State that opts to prioritize seating to college students first, then fill any leftover seating with hired officers.

In order to be eligible for the SUNY Potsdam Law Enforcement Training Institute, candidates must be a junior or senior in their undergraduate studies, have a minimum of a 2.5 grade point average and possess a driver's license. Community members or students from other institutions may contact the Office of Transfer Admissions to discuss their eligibility for the program by visiting http://www.potsdam.edu/admissions/transfer.

The SUNY Potsdam Law Enforcement Training Institute is cosponsored by the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice and the Lougheed Center for Applied Learning.