Police Explorers Rank High in National Competiton

Lt. Arthur Herring of the Montville Police Explorers took home first place in the bike policing competition at the National Law Enforcement Explorer Conference, which was held in Atlanta, Georgia from July 19 to July 24.

According to a release from the department, each of the three teams sent to the competition in Atlanta came home with honors. Explorer team C, made up of explorers Sarah Renfer, Rosaria Riccobono, Stephen Danko and Brendan Zevitz, won second place in the community service portion of the competition. Explorer teams A and B both finished in the top 10 percent for emergency field first aid and traffic accident investigation. Team A consisted of Brian Crownover, Pat McGrath, John Ligouri and Herring, while team B was Michael Cooney, Michael Cali, John Stretaviski and Joe McCue.

"We have learned, as police explorers, that our visibility in the community allows our program to continue," explorer Sarah Renfer said in a speech given at the conference. "We are taught to take pride in ourselves, in our community and in our organization." As a result, we are proud to be the police explores of Montville Township."

According to officer Frank Cooney, member of the Montville police and advisor for the explorers, the squad's success is no surprise.

"We do well," he said. "There hasn't been a year that we didn't come home with something.

According to Cooney, the squad finished in the top 10 percent of the nation for Bomb Threat Response in 2004, second overall for Community Service Post Development in 2006 and fifth overall in Emergency First Aid in 2008.

According to a release, the National Law Enforcement Explorer Conference takes place every other year and is attended by explorer groups from around the county.  Besides individual and team competitions, the conference features seminars on topics ranging from bomb investigation to combating terrorism, as well as career fairs and rally demonstrations.

Team A competed in the arrest and search, hostage negotiation and emergency field first aid categories, while team B participated in burglary, traffic accident investigation and crime scene search scenarios. Team C participated in the community service portion of the event, setting up a booth and speaking about community service.

According to Cooney, the police explorers are a community service group aimed at youths with an interested in law enforcement. The explores are utilized at community events, like the Fourth of July celebration, in crowd control, traffic flow and security duties.