CAMARILLO : Scouts Take Classes as Police Trainees

Jaime Hernandez swiveled left when he should have swiveled right and regretted it immediately.

“Drop, Hernandez!” yelled Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Linda Weber. The 16-year-old Oxnard High School student did as he was ordered. He planted his palms on the hot asphalt street and extended his legs to the tips of his black polished shoes.

While the rest of his class continued marching in formation beneath the lunch hour sun--back and forth, right and left, in and around, and on and on--Hernandez did penance in pushups. “One, sir!” he yelled. “Two, sir! Three, sir!”

After “10, sir!” Hernandez was allowed to rejoin his classmates. Until he tripped up again.

Hernandez is one of 28 Explorer Scouts who are attending--voluntarily--a mini-police academy at the Ventura County Criminal Justice Training Center at Camarillo Airport. The three-week class is a summer tradition for county Explorers.

Those who pass a final exam will graduate Friday.

The Explorers, who range in age from 14 to 19, learn basic police procedures, such as how to operate a police radio and write official reports, Weber said. The one thing that they aren’t taught is firearm use.

Jenni Sliester, 18, who graduated from Thousand Oaks High School this year, said she hopes that the experience will help in her pursuit of a law enforcement career. Her father and stepmother and an aunt hold jobs in law enforcement.

Some of her friends think she’s nuts, she said, “but most of them are pretty impressed that I know where I’m going in life.”

Hernandez said he also wants to be a police officer, despite occasional taunts from his friends.

“Some of them call me ‘narc,’ but I don’t pay attention to them,” Hernandez said. “Because five years down the line, they’re not going to be anywhere.”