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Show '; ' lit-- I ...'.-V i'. M z 1 l Spelling bee winners at Central School, L-R, Julie Jacob, second place; Kelly Andersen, first place; and Tiffany Harris, third place, verify the spelling of a word with the dictionary. dic-tionary. Police officers promoted j By MARCELLA WALKER J Pleasant Grove Police Chief Mike "Ferre has announced the re-i re-i assignment of two police officers in I his department. Bert Bean has been made a detective after serving as a patrolman and Mike Blackhurst was named as Sergeant and will be in ! charge of the patrolmen. Det. Bean said he is really enjoying en-joying his new assignment and finds it very exciting. He noted that it is completely different from his 15 ears as a patrol officer. He'is, amazed at the tremendous amount of paper work that .is required in the new position. He explained that he needs to have a knowledge of the state criminal law and .what the law requires in an arrest and prosecution. Bert said that the job is exciting in border. Since then he has spent time in the hospital, at home, and on office duty recuperating from his injuries. He said the accident taught him to be more aware of what people around you are doing. ..... The officer feels that there is a tremendpus'juvenile problem in the community with- theft, drugs, alcohol. There was a high number of arrests of juveniles in the city last year. Mike said one of his concerns is working with the city residents. Law enforcement is changing. The Supreme Court has reversed some of the rulings it had made before, making it easier for the police officer of-ficer to do his job. Cooperation.-between agencies maks-ut possible to arrest more people. Record keeping, better radios, up-to-date computers ana so forth help out a lot. Mike stated that the city has a good bunch of officers,. He emphatically em-phatically noted that it is the best -police department in the state. . The officers do a lot of work that the ptfblicare not even aware of, he said. They "help boy scouts with merit badges, give tours of the police station, teach classes at school, -churches and clubs, and much of this is done during their off hours The department has three officers on duty on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays because that is when most of the crime is committed. The other nights there are two officers on duty. vMike and his jyife, Carol, have two daughters. He enjoys working on his yard and playing with the children. I - - i ' V . the fact that you become aware of the criminal activity in the community com-munity that you were unaware of as a police officer. He will have some calls when he is off-duty for investigations. He will be involved in follow up assignments that come from Lt. Tom IJaul. Pleasant Grove has been ex- "tremely successful in their investigation in-vestigation of major crimes, solving nearly twice as many Part I crimes ttian the national average, Bert noted. fie also- stated Inat they hope to continue that rate. He said he feels that he has an advantage after being on the streets for 15 years as a patrolnian becuase he knows a lot of Mike Blackhurst Bert Bean people and is acquainted with other things whicn snould help in his work. He added that what a police officer learns while on the streets about people, places and things is invaluable. in-valuable. Bert said that his wife is happy that he is going to have regular hours, weekends off, and no shift work. However, Bert explained that he misses the excitement of patrol work, emergency calls and dealing with the public. He said it was a challenge to go where you had to solve a situation right there and then. Over the past few years the influx ofopulatiorf has made for an in-cf in-cf ease in stress and danger. In summing up his fast 15 years as a patrolman, Bert said, "It's been a mighty interesting experience." Mike has been with the Pleasant Grove Police Department" for 17 years andiook one year for a leave ofabsepce. -He plans no ifTunediate changes in the officers' routifm. He is desirous of eventually doing some selective enforcement where certain' neighborhoods will be selected for special patrol. Some streets will have stricter traffic enforcement and he plans to have more coordination between what is going on out in the city and ; the police chief. Mike was seriously injured in an ! auto accident last spring when a poUcfrcar -was involved in a headon collision near the Lindon-Orem |