CHP closes academy amid pandemic

SACRAMENTO >> The California Highway Patrol is temporarily closing its training academy in West Sacramento amid the coronavirus pandemic, the agency announced Friday.

“While we have been making every effort to keep the cadets safe and healthy during their training these last few weeks, the best, and most responsible decision I can make to protect them is to send them home,” CHP Commissioner Warren Stanley said in a statement.

“I cannot accept the risk that any one of the cadets or staff becomes ill and then be faced with having to quarantine the entire campus,” he added.

Cadets are housed in 168 dormitories at the self-contained 457-acre academy during their 28 weeks of training, according to the CHP. The close quarters are favorable to the transmission of the novel coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, which has infected more than 19,000 people in the United States, with 227 deaths as of Friday evening.

The CHP said the current class of 79 senior cadets and 98 junior cadets will report to work Tuesday at a CHP area office near their home. They will perform administrative duties but also have a chance to observe law enforcement operations and learn about the functions of an office, similar to where they will report upon graduation.

The cadets will resume their training when the pandemic is over, according to the CHP.

The CHP said the only time the academy has interrupted training since it opened for full-time operation in July 1976 was in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots and on several other occasions due to state fiscal constraints.

Most uniformed personnel at the academy will be reassigned to other area offices during the closure, according to the CHP. Kitchen and janitorial workers will remain and “thoroughly clean the facility.”