Ogden-area police present Citizens Police Academy to Weber County Commission, invite residents to apply

Diana Lopez, community outreach coordinator for the Ogden City Police Department, described the Ogden-area Citizens Police Academy at the Weber County Commission work session on Feb. 3, 2025, and invited residents to apply for the spring session starting March 6.

Lopez told commissioners the academy is a seven-week program held one evening per week with one full Saturday; it runs in a spring session and a fall session and is free to community participants. "This is a 100% completely free program, for anybody in the community," she said.

The program, piloted in 2017, has completed 13 full cohorts and nearly 200 participants, Lopez said. Participating agencies include the Ogden Police Department, Weber County Sheriff's Office, North Ogden Police Department, Riverdale and Roy police, the Ogden-Weber and Ogden-Weber-Morgan dispatch centers, Ogden Fire Department, CSI, SWAT, a gang unit and strike force. The course combines classroom instruction with hands-on exercises such as traffic-stop simulations, defensive tactics, canine demonstrations, CSI overviews and simulator-based de-escalation exercises.

Lopez said the class mix intentionally includes elected leaders, businesspeople, clergy, teachers, students and community advocates. Applicants must be at least 18 and pass a background check; each participating agency typically gets two slots and agencies and committee members screen applications. "We want to make sure that the people who are there are there for proper reasons just to learn more about law enforcement," Lopez said.

She said the academy has helped identify operational gaps — for example, course participants discovered that the county's dispatch busy-line recording was not available in Spanish. "We didn't have that recording in Spanish ... so we were able to piece together some of those holes that we didn't even know were within our system," Lopez said.

Lopez said the program also benefits officers and deputies by letting them interact with residents outside enforcement encounters. The class concludes with a graduation ceremony; participants are allowed to miss up to two sessions and still graduate. The academy recently began asking each participating agency to contribute $200 per session to cover snacks, lanyards and other modest costs.

Commissioners asked about selection and scheduling; Lopez said outreach has largely been by word-of-mouth and through partner programs such as the county VIPs, and that spring sessions typically start in early March while fall sessions begin in September. She said the spring 2025 session will meet Wednesday evenings with one Saturday for simulator and fire-department activities.

Lopez distributed application information and an email contact on the program flyer and encouraged commissioners and the public to apply or to share the flyer. "If you're dying to get into a canine bite suit," she added with a laugh, "you're welcome to check it out."