Idealism still prevails among IMPD recruits

Robert Chamberlain served in the Army's 101st Airborne Division — even doing a tour in Afghanistan — before deciding to trade in the life of a soldier for a more stable existence in Indianapolis, as a police officer.

Brittany Waltz graduated from high school, started college and became a mother — twice — before following a path to which her high school softball coach introduced her: the life of a cop.

And Gerson Cardona, a former chaplain and Bible college instructor who was born in Guatemala, found a new calling in policing, where he hopes his most powerful weapon will be an ability to love his neighbors.

Amid multiple national controversies over police tactics, brutality and racial profiling — a combination that only inflamed distrust of law enforcement, particularly among racial minorities — the threesome entered the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department training academy last fall.

Now they are progressing toward graduation this year into a department flush with applicants. This training class is expected to produce 80 graduates, and 115 are expected to enter training sometime in 2015. That second grouping — of 115 — is an expansion of the recruiting class city officials announced Thursday, made possible by a new public safety tax and efficiencies from the public safety budget.

The eventual graduation of the trainees comes as an aging police force is expected to shed hundreds of officers to retirement in the next 10 years and as gun violence remains a matter of grave concern in the city. To keep up, IMPD will need to spend more than $10 million annually to recruit and train replacements.

Despite the challenges on the streets — and the skepticism in some segments of the community about police — the new trainees say they are eager to take their place on the force and to build bridges with a public whose trust in them won't be universal.

"Hopefully I can get through to the communities to start young and let them know at a young age that police aren't bad, they are actually here to help, not just lock you up," said Chamberlain, the soldier-turned-trainee, who is black.

Chamberlain, 34, sat through a training session Thursday afternoon with instruction on the importance of wearing a bulletproof vest, seat belts in the patrol car and the deadly perils of being complacent during roadside stops or while directing traffic. In a few cases, the training included lessons from the fatal encounters of other officers.

At home, he has four children. And the session was a reminder of the sacrifices officers make. But Chamberlain knows, from Afghanistan, what it means to work in dangerous situations. "This is something bigger than myself," he said.

Waltz, 23, was the only female trainee in a room of roughly 26 trainees. She said she's a different kind of minority but hopes that enables her to empathize with other minorities. The training has included visits from various members of minority communities who have explained the resentment that's sometimes out there.

"We've talked about that it's not so much about us personally but it is the uniform and what we represent as a whole," Waltz said.

She's training to be a cop because she wants to give back to the community she grew up in, on the Southside. The grim lessons from the sessions have been "sobering" but helpful in understanding the importance of being aware of one's surroundings. They also have given her an appreciation for her classmates and the officers already on the streets.

"I think it takes a special kind of person to wake up and put the uniform on every day and knowing the potential threats that are out there," she said.

Cardona, 35, was a professor at Crossroads Bible College when he became a volunteer chaplain assisting Latino pastors serving IMPD's East District. The experience showed him ways to use his gifts as a community leader in a manner beyond pastoral counseling. He considers his role models to be the patriarchs of his faith — Joshua, Moses and Joseph.

"Making a difference," he said, "that's where we come from."

Listening to Cardona, one gets the impression that he might find it difficult to pull his gun in a tough situation. Cardona said he hopes he must never do so, but he feels he's tough enough if the situation calls for it.

"I will pull out my first double-sized sword first — Scripture — and treat people as human beings before I can be forced to do that."

Cardona said he hopes to be a bridge between police and Latinos, who he says often distrust police based not only on profiling incidents but also from their experiences with corrupt police in their native countries.

"I love education," he said, "so I will be an educator."

Such idealism in new police recruits is not uncommon, said Jeremy Carter, an assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. People who seek to be police tend to be motivated to improve society and "do good things." And despite recent events, he said, there's still an overall positive view of policing.

As he trumpeted the coming recruiting classes, IMPD Chief Rick Hite was asked Thursday whether there has been a negative Ferguson effect on police recruiting, Hite said recent calls for new recruits have produced as many as 2,000 applicants. In the class of which Chamberlain, Waltz and Cardona are members, about 35 percent are minorities.

"It's not diminished," he said, "it's increased. I think there is more concern of 'how can we help' from citizens."

Star reporter Robert King covers public safety and crime prevention. Call him at (317) 444-6089. Follow him on Twitter: @RbtKing.