Long-delayed academy class finally joins SJPD
SAN JOSE >> The latest academy that just joined the ranks of the San Jose Police Department has been a year in the making, delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and forged amid a national reckoning for police after George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis and San Jose’s own tarnished reputation with related protests.
At an outdoor graduation ceremony Feb. 5, acting Chief David Tindall told the assembled class of 42 new officers that those trials were “challenges no other class before you has had to face … challenges to your training that you could never have imagined.”
“I know each and everyone one of you will rise to this moment in time,” Tindall said.
The graduating class has seven women and includes ethnic and racial backgrounds, including Afghan, Latino, Filipino, Korean, Indian, Vietnamese and Native American, and 11 languages spoken among the group. Seven graduates have military experience.
Among the new officers is 23-year-old Dejon Packer, a Houston native who has made San Jose his home for the past decade. A couple of years ago, he was on the San Jose State football team pondering a nursing career when then-chief Eddie Garcia and other police officers visited the team to talk about their perceptions of police and their experiences with law enforcement.
“After that community talk, it gave me a different outlook,” Packer said in an interview. “For me, it’s about wanting to be able to make a difference and show kids in low-income areas, kids who look like me, they can do this job.”
Packer said that as a Black man, he approaches his new career knowing he has the potential to bridge gaps in community trust. It’s a task he understands has taken on infinitely more gravity in the past year.
“I embrace it and I know that it’s not going to be something easy. Some are going to see the badge and not see me for who I am,” he said. “I feel like I have a good way of talking to people, being real with them and letting them know my background, where I came from. I’m looking forward to the impact I’d be able to have on people just by doing good police service for them and being in my community.”
In his introductory speech, Tindall noted the scrutiny the new officers will face by virtue of the historic police crossroads in the country, saying “the status quo is no longer an option.”
Angela Novak, a 26-year-old former medical examiner investigator in San Francisco, said she has a passion for living with and serving San Jose’s diverse residents.
“It just felt like home. I love San Jose,” Novak said. “Being from Pittsburgh and coming to the Bay Area, I chose this police department because I felt a lot of respect for the community.”
The road to graduation was a start-and-stop affair that took a year for Academy Class 38, a massive extension from the typical 32-week recruit training period. In-person instruction and training began Feb. 19, 2020, and about a month later, was suspended with no known restart date after the firstin-the-nation lockdown orders were issued in Santa Clara County in response to the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic.
The class was officially placed on paid administrative leave and commanders and instructors kept tabs on the recruits, sending them coursework when possible and monitoring their adherence to isolation and safety practices.
In late June, the department decided to resume the academy with strict distancing and sanitation protocols at the SJPD substation in South San Jose. The substation has served as the training base for years because unfulfilled staffing projections from over a decade ago have prevented it from opening as a full-service police station.
That posed a logistical question because there was supposed to be a new class getting into gear around that time. So instructors pushed the new class back a few months, but added 13 recruits to Academy Class 38. Then they completely restarted training to eliminate instruction gaps, meaning the February recruits had to start fresh.