(Beaver Dam) Jace Laning of the Beaver Dam Police Department serves as a Patrol Officer and is a member of the drug task force. In addition to those duties, he is also a field training officer which works with new recruits to teach them the ropes before they go out on patrol on their own. Officer Megan Ruhland recently completed the field training program, which is done in four phases. Laning explains his role during the first phase.
“So, phase one as a field trainer, I’m doing 90% of the actual work,” Laning says. “And we’ll use Officer [Megan] Ruhland as an example or Officer [Joey] Salazar who recently went through our program. They’re probably just sitting in the passenger at least for the very first week, just observing, kind of getting their feet wet as far as how the whole, you know, job works in and of itself.”
Laning says that around 99-percent of new recruits pass phase one. As each phase progresses, the workload for the trainee increases so that by phase four, the field training officer is observing and making sure the trainee is not breaking the law or being unsafe. He adds that he enjoys field training.
“It’s very rewarding when you have trainees, you know who make it through the program and work on their own and excel on their own,” says Laning. “There’s not much that gets better than that from a trainer’s perspective.”
Laning says Lieutenant Jeremiah Johnson is the field training supervisor and is in charge of the program.
