SALYERSVILLE – On Monday the Magoffin County Sheriff Department donated a retired patrol car to the Magoffin County High School’s law and public safety program.
Sheriff Bill Meade had conversations with Superintendent Chris Meadows and the Law and Public Safety Program instructor Jim Burke about having a couple of vehicles they were thinking about auctioning off, but decided the Dodge Charger would be a good fit for the school and they would like to donate it to the school.
“We certainly like to partner with our school system as much as we can,” Sheriff Meade said. “We’re tickled to death they have this program going. Tim and I know Jim Burke from some years back, and we’re confident he’s going to do an excellent job with this class. I hope we can produce some future law enforcement officers out of this program and just anything we can do for the schools we certainly want to do it.”
Jim Burke, the new law and public safety teacher for the high school, told Mortimer Media he has been a police officer for 30 years all over the state of Kentucky.
“The program we have here is law and public safety and we teach anything from introduction to law enforcement to criminal investigations and anything in between,” Burke said. “We have also corrections and emergency management courses, as well. I hope in the future I can get all of these kids certified in career tech that way when they leave here, they’re ready to go work somewhere. Most of them have to be 21 before they can get law work in the field, but they’ll have a really good idea and firsthand experience and firsthand knowledge of what a police officer does on a day-to-day basis.”
By having a patrol car, he said they can teach the students traffic stop safety for police officers, vehicle positioning in traffic stops, what to watch for during traffic stops and how to keep yourself safe during a traffic stop.
“Having the car is a good aid for that because there’s nothing like having a police car to show someone how to stop a car, where you need approach the car from and maintain your safety,” Burke said. “Another thing is emergency operations of a police car. In the state of Kentucky a police car is not actually considered an emergency vehicle unless it has its lights and sirens on continually, so that’s another thing they’re going to be taught – how to turn all the controls on inside the car and what each one is used for.”
“On behalf of the high school, I just want to be one of the first to say ‘thank you’ to Sheriff Meade and his department for this extremely generous donation of this squad car,” Magoffin County High School Principal Brian Conley said. “Our law and public safety program is still relatively new and it’s one of those programs that even though it is lodged here in our new CTC, that program didn’t come equipped with say a new lab or equipment that some of the other programs have benefited from, so to have something like this – a squad car – donated to the program our students can practice more application of law and public safety. It’s just great and I just want to thank him for this donation.”
