Frederick Police Preparing For Training Academy For The Summer

Background checks are underway on these potential candidates.Officer Joe Constantine, (L), Chief Jason Lando  (R), Frederick City Police.Frederick, Md (KM) A new Frederick Police academy to train news officers  is expected to begin  this summer. Chief Jason Lando says testing is underway for the men and women who want to attend.In addition to things such as the physical agility test, these potential student officers will be undergoing background checks. Chief Lando, who was a guest recently on WFMD’s “Morning News Express,:” says something that an individual did years ago may not necessarily disqualify them from undergoing training to be a police officer. “If you used marijuana when you were 18 and you’re 28 years old, that’s probably different than if you use drugs the night before you come in and take the test. So there’s different standards that we use,”: he said..Chief Lando says the Police Department doesn’t want  candidates to be perfect.  But it would like to have these  men and women who want to join  the force to be  ethical. “If you feel like ‘hey, this person is an ethical candidate, they’ve overcome whatever their issues are, and they’d make a great police officer.’ We’re not looking for perfection. But we’re also looking for people that are going to live up  to the standards we have at FPD,” he says.Related to that, Chief Lando says officers sometimes encounter temptations while on the job. Items such as money and other valuables can be laying around. He says officers must be ethical and not give in to grabbing cash or other items nearby, particularly if they come across them while serving a search and seizure warrant on  a suspect’s home.The Chief says the temptation is out there. “I used to work in the drug unit and we would serve search warrants on houses. I remember one time we found a million dollars in a duffel bag, and this was before body cameras. It would have been super easy to take some of that money. I didn’t even for one second think about it,” Lando says.On that same “Morning News Express” broadcast, Officer Joe Constantine with the Frederick Police was also a guest. He said he’s not heard of the cops he known  giving into temptation. “I’ve never had that temptation. I think those stories are far and few between when they happen,” he said.Officer Constantine was serving as Chief for the Day.Chief Lando said such behavior is not tolerated by fellow police officers. “There’s a saying that ‘there’s nothing more a good cop hates more than a bad cop,’” he says. “A lot of times we get accused of covering up for each other. Every officer that I’ve ever worked with the thing that you hate to see more than anything else is one of our own breaking the law because it makes the entire profession look bad.”By Kevin McManus