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Training Others: A historical look at
the State Police Municipal Academy
by Sean Reardon groups. Municipal police officers from Holden
and Franklin were also included on the drill staff.
On May 5, 2008, the Massachusetts State
Police Academy went Back to the Future when On September 26, 2008, 44 police officers
approximately 50 Student Officers arrived at the representing 21 different agencies graduated
State Police Academy in New Braintree for their from the academy. Was it a success? The MPTC
first day of training in the State Police Municipal and the MSP believe it was. The strongest
Academy #1 (SPMA #1). Although a new concept endorsement came from the chiefs themselves,
to some, to others it was reinvesting in an old who helped us quickly fill the available slots in
practice when troopers ran local academies prior the next two SPMA classes. SPMA #2 graduated
to the creation of the Municipal Police Training 52 officers on December 11, 2009, and SPMA
#3 added another 50 officers to the
Commonwealth on January 21, 2011.
Starting with SPMA #4 in September
2012, the student officers trained
alongside student officers of Special
State Police Officer Class (SSPO)
#24. The student officers from both
classes worked and studied together
throughout much of the training until
the SSPO’s completed their training in
week #16. All agreed this was a great
success and helped to build on one
of the most important facets of law
enforcement success – networking and
teamwork.
Committee (MPTC). While our duties are very
similar, the nature of our agencies and missions SSPO #25 ran alone in 2013, but
make for some differences between the daily life since then, SPMA and SSPO classes have run
of a trooper and a municipal police officer. concurrently. Although the classes are separated
by platoons, they all “enjoy” day one together
Some chiefs initially expressed concern as a group and the overwhelming majority of
about the potential output but, soon enough, the their classes are taken together. As the municipal
training seats were filled with agencies willing to and SSPO curriculums have been updated, we
give their recruits over to the MSP for 21 weeks. have been able to integrate both classes into
The Curriculum was based on the MPTC’s Recruit shared training experiences, which will serve to
Officer Course, with some additional time given strengthen working relationships. This will prove
to Command and Leadership, a ropes course, to be invaluable as critical incidents routinely cut
and other periods of instruction. In addition across functional and jurisdictional lines.
to the curriculum, the academy staff was also
“blended”, including troopers, sworn personnel The teamwork and friendships created
from other state and municipal police, as well in this environment were clearly visible in the
as additional outside agencies and advocacy
F r en c h·a n d·E le c t r ic·B l ue·S p r in g 2018·p a g e·18
