September 16, 2014

SCPD Graduates 4 New Officers From The Academy



There is your regular “proud” and then there is a higher level of “SCPD Proud”.  Today, we are definitely “SCPD Proud” to introduce our 4 newest Police Officers who took the oath of office after their graduation from the police academy earlier today.   
SCPD command staff and Mayor Lynn Robinson were on hand to witness the graduation ceremony for Academy Class SB 125 of the South Bay Regional Public Safety Training Consortium……(wow that’s a mouthful).   

Meet our newest officers:
Left to Right; Elizabeth Howard-Gibbon, Bernadette Erlach, Chief Kevin Vogel, Sarah Benjamin, Dominique Hohmann
Elizabeth Howard-Gibbon is 26 years old.  Elizabeth previously worked as a contractor for the USGS and was an esteemed member of the Best Buy Geek Squad.  Elizabeth graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Anthropology.

Bernadette Erlach is 25 years old.  Bernadette previously worked in real estate and the food service industry.  She graduated from UC Davis with a B.S. in Human Development.

Sarah Benjamin is 26 years old.  She started here at SCPD as a volunteer and eventually was hired as a Police Records Technician.  She is now a full-fledged Police Officer.  Sarah graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.S. in Sociology.

Dominique Hohmann is 22 years old.  Dominique is the niece of the legendary (retired) Lieutenant John Hohmann from Scotts Valley PD.  Dominique comes to us from the Clovis area where she has previous experience working with their police department as a non-sworn CSO.

It is not too often that we have an academy class of 4 or more people.  It is even more unusual when all of our recruits make it through the grueling 6 month long course and graduate together.  They proved they are as tough as they come!!!   
What is extra-special about this group is that this marks the first time in SCPD history we have graduated an all-female academy class.  Chief Vogel is extremely pleased to provide this opportunity to these four fantastic women. 
Not only did these women rise to the top in the hiring process, but they graduated near the top of their academy class.  We are excited about their future here at SCPD. 
Our newest officers will have about a week of orientation work to complete, then they will hit the streets with their training officers for a 4 month Field Training Program and evaluation before they are solo beat officers. 

Please join us in welcoming these fantastic new officers!!!