CLOVIS (KMJ) — Clovis Police welcomed an influx of Chiefs, and they’re all from the sixth grade.
It was a part of Clovis PD’s ‘Chief for a day’ competition, which was the prize offered to those who won an essay competition within a number of Clovis’ elementary schools. The essays answered the question ‘if I were Police Chief, what would I do to make the community a safer and better place for students?’.
Nearly 1,000 entries were received, with skills in inventiveness, written communication skills, and understanding of the community, and the challenges of law enforcement, all areas judged.
“I live on the corner of my neighborhood and usually people just speed when me and my brothers are outside playing”, reveals student Alexis Cinfel, as she explained what the subject of her essay was.
“So I thought that maybe we could put some speed bumps right there. So they can slow down”.
She was one of thirteen students who were selected as winners and invited to Clovis Police Headquarters on Tuesday, but some of those chosen couldn’t attend the open-day as they had tests or other commitments.
The Bud Rank Elementary student says she was really excited when she found out she’d won.
“No one in my family is a police officer, so I’ve never really done anything like this before”.
The winners were picked up from their schools in police cars, and received a personalized tour of Clovis Police Headquarters. After receiving their ID badges (which identified them as ‘Chief for a day’), the children were taught how to dust for fingerprints, process evidence, the inner workings of SWAT, and all about the EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) robot.
The goal of the contest is to help students learn about their community, current events, public service and the challenges facing cities in providing public safety.
“What we find is that young people, even sixth graders, come up with very very good ideas and we’ve used some of their ideas”, says Police Sergeant Lonnie Amerjan. “Especially the app or social media related stuff…they’re incredible.
“And then we’ll take those ideas, we’ll share them among each other…not as a competition, just so that the other kids can see what they wrote too”.
A total of thirteen elementary schools took part in this year’s competition, which is now in its sixth year..
Hear the report from KMJ’s Dominic McAndrew as it aired:
