InTucker Magazine

On the Beat with Lt. Schoeppner – November 2020

Lt. D.G. Schoeppner is Tucker’s liaison to the DeKalb County Police Department and can be followed at facebook.com/dgschoeppner or emailed at dgschoeppner@dekalbcountyga.gov.

The overarching purpose of most of the DeKalb Police Department’s community outreach programs is education. It would probably surprise you how many people either don’t know or are misinformed about how government, and police departments in particular, work. There are many reasons for this. Not least of which is that government bureaucracy can be confusing by design. Another reason is that the police have been portrayed inaccurately so many times in TV and movies that people have come to believe that is how they really work. So much so, that even people that work in government can benefit from ongoing education.

Last month, Tucker City Clerk Bonnie Warne and Danielle Greene from our Court Clerk Office both graduated from our virtual Citizen’s Academy. They were two of 50 citizens who graduated this year. This month we will talk about some of the things they learned. Hopefully, this will spark interest in some of you to participate in future academies and become more familiar with how our system works.

This year’s Citizen’s Academy was six weeks long. All of the students attended virtually by Zoom Meeting. These classes covered a wide variety of police related topics. They included investigations (Homicide, Property Crimes, Internal Affairs), traffic enforcement, specialized units (SWAT, Arial, K9, etc.), uniform patrol, and crisis intervention. There were also classes on how the police department overlaps with the court system (Superior, State, Juvenile and Traffic) and the 911 Call Center.

When the Citizen’s Academy meets under normal circumstances, they also put on some basic use-of-force training. This includes scenarios where students are exposed to stressful situations and asked to respond accordingly. This is an excellent tool to show citizens how difficult it can be to make split second decisions during emergency situations. It really opens people’s eyes to the sometimes life and death situations that police officers face.

We typically put on one Citizen’s Academy every year. Even this year, we managed under these unusual circumstances. The next Academy will likely start next July. Please keep an eye on social media like Facebook and Nextdoor for notifications on when to sign up. I hope that you all will consider attending. You would be surprised the perspective that can be gained by pulling back the curtain on how your government works.