Loading..."We are very pleased in this 21st class of the Citizens Police Academy to welcome our first members from Louisville's refugee communities." These were the words of Officer Matthew Gelhausen of the Metro Police Department as he began the first session of the CPA early last September.
Three months and twelve class meetings later Raphal Atak (Sudan), Agni Kharel (Bhutan), and Abdullahi Noor (Somalia) were presented graduation certificates by Chief Steve Conrad at a ceremony at Memorial Auditorium, a further step in the evolving relationship between KRM and the Metro Police.
The class met one night each week to see the inner workings of the Department, on-site sessions on narcotics, violent crimes, the SWAT Team, etc., do a "ride- along" with an officer in their home districts and take a two-hour tour inside the Jefferson County jail.
Eyes were suddenly opened to see what's behind the men and women in uniform, and meet officers involved in each part of the Department's work. Invariably, refugees come with a history of abuse by the police. Agni wrote, "[In his former country] police could take people at gun point to jail for torture," obviously creating a climate of insecurity and fear. Attending the CPA "drastically changed my mind" and showed "how the police are working to keep us safe in our city," and planted the seeds of ways "to learn and bring about positive changes" in his Bhutanese community and "our city." And so it was for Raphael and Abdullahi and twenty-one other CPA classmates.
