PEABODY — After getting a crash course in firefighting and a tour of the city’s public-safety facilities this week, a group of roughly two dozen students completed the Public Safety Academy for Teens with a crime-scene investigation — and some pizza.
The four-day program is a collaboration between the Recreation Department and the city’s public-safety departments, with students getting to spend two days learning the ropes of the Fire Department, and the next two with the Police Department. On Thursday, the final day of the academy, students learned about the ins and outs of the bomb squad, complete with a visit from the Essex County Sheriff’s Department and a few of its K9 officers.
After the bomb squad’s demonstration, Capt. Scott Wlasuk took the students through a mock crime-scene scenario, which he put together in part thanks to a last-minute Party City run Wednesday evening. Wlasuk, who heads the Criminal Investigation Department, assembled a murder scene complete with a stolen car, footprints, fake blood, knives, guns, drugs, and a victim.
In an interview, Wlasuk said he had to weigh the efficacy and accuracy of the mock scenario with a desire to not traumatize the group of students, who were in grades five through eight.
“I wanted to make it multiple possible scenarios,” he said.
He explained that the evidence could suggest that the incident was just a disturbance, a fight between two people, or a drug deal. And, with fake jewelry for sale at Party City, Wlasuk opted to plant some at the scene to create two crimes in one.
During the investigation, Wlasuk and a group of other officers walked students through the crime scene, pointing out key details that could lead them to the truth of what actually took place inside the police station’s garage. Then, students got the chance to place yellow evidence markers along the area, denoting the location of ripped-up scratch tickets, shell casings, and the aforementioned jewelry, before carefully collecting the evidence and placing it in paper bags.
Another group, which examined the “stolen” car left outside the garage area, dusted for fingerprints and retrieved a rubber gun from the vehicle.
Wlasuk said students responded well to the investigative scenario and asked good questions across the two days they were with the Police Department. He added that he tried to impress on students that investigations tend not to come together as quickly as they do on TV or in movies.
“It’s like a big giant jigsaw puzzle and you might need that one piece of evidence,” he said.
The academy also represents an important opportunity for the Police Department to connect with the city’s younger residents, and both Wlasuk and Lt. Dave Bonfanti, the department’s public information officer, stressed the importance of community engagement under Chief Tom Griffin.
“It’s a way for us to connect with them on kind of a personal level and for them to get to know us,” Wlasuk said. “One of the most rewarding things is when you see one of them, whether you’re working or maybe you’re out with your family, and they come up and they say ‘Oh, captain, how are you doing?’ That’s very rewarding.”
“Most importantly, we’re trying to teach them what we know,” Bonfanti added. “We’re trying to teach them everything’s a step, you slow everything down, you don’t overlook the little things.”
“Basically we’re just trying to teach them what we’re doing. Yesterday, we were on a call and we did a very similar thing,” he continued. “It’s honestly a training for us too.”
For 12-year-old Cayden Meehan, of Middleton, the program only reaffirmed his desire to be a police officer when he grows up.
Meehan said public safety was a fun thing to learn about, and cited the evidence-collection process as his favorite part of the police half of the program.
“I love everybody here,” he said.
Jacob Sylvester, 13, said he signed up for the course because he wanted to learn how to do CPR, which each and every student was certified in on the first day of the program. Sylvester specifically said he wanted to learn how to save somebody’s life.
During the crime-scene investigation, Sylvester was responsible for investigating some of the discarded shell casings and helped find fingerprints.
Jillian Hayes, 14, said she signed up for the program because she’s a big fan of “CSI” and other similar TV shows.
Hayes cited spending time with the K9 officers and learning CPR as particular highlights of the course, but said she wished she had also learned how to administer Narcan.
Another student, 14-year-old Anthony Smith, also cited learning CPR as an incentive for signing up.
“Just in case something happens, I want (to be able) to help,” Smith said.
