Camp exposes local youths to safety careers

Respect for Law Camp will be held for the 21st time next weekend, hosted at Miami University and staffed by police and safety personnel from around the county.

Many of the exercises and demonstrations will be held here, but many of the camp’s activities have shifted in recent years to Butler Tech, which operates peace officer training. Several other activities will also be hosted at other locations around the county.

“We usually see a transformation in these kids by the end of the weekend,” said Candace Keller, a dispatcher with the Oxford Police Department and director of the annual camp. “The camp is not intended to make a bunch of police officers, but many graduates do go on to be police officers, firefighters or EMTs.”

Keller said the date is determined by Miami, which provides housing for participants and leaders, but with this year’s camp, the registration numbers are down over past years. There were approximately 80 registered as of last week, but more will be taken through Tuesday, June 16.

Participants are ages 11-14 from all over the county.

Keller said campers are expected to live by five words throughout the weekend event — Respect, Spirit, Leadership, Teamwork and Kindness. One of the coveted awards handed out at the graduation ceremony is the “Black Band” with those words on it to the member of each platoon judged to have best lived up to them.

“The Black Band is the top award for the one best showing all five traits,” she said. “They all get a band in the color of their platoon and some of the kids who return are wearing them from past years.”

The camp brochure adds, “It is our hope that these five words are something they will leave with and use the rest of their lives.”

Keller said camp participants rarely get homesick and want to go home.

“In the evaluations, where we ask what they would change, most of them want the camp to go for a week,” she said.

The camp is sponsored by the Butler County Chiefs of Police Association and staffed by officers from around the county as well as firefighters and EMTs, some of whom came through the camp when they were young. One such officer is currently a Miami University police officer and Keller said several years ago a former camper returned to served on the staff from her job with the police department in San Francisco.

All the departments in the county have money to offer scholarships for children in their areas to help with the $150 registration fee.

Classroom work for the camp is done at Butler Tech, which also has a firearms simulator and driving simulator used for the camp, but other activities include rappelling, building searches, bomb squad demonstration, a mock felony traffic stop and others.

They use the high ropes course and low ropes course at Miami to build teamwork among the platoons and the F.B.I. takes part with a pellet gun course. A SWAT and SRT demonstration is presented in West Chester.

Much of the life of the campers is military style with marching and military terminology.

“It’s quite physical for them. It’s a long day for them. It’s a long day for us,” Keller said.

She said the personnel who are platoon leaders and staff wear shorts and T-shirts and never appear in uniform until the graduation ceremony.

“With all the bad publicity police get these days, the kids get to see them as regular people, one of them, and they are impressed when they walk out in uniform for the graduation,” she said. “It’s a good thing. It’s neat, positive.”

Camp runs Friday through Sunday, June 19-21. For more information, call 513-524-5280.

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