Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: JUNE 2016 37 A new program in San Antonio de- signed to bridge the gap between cops and kids looks like it will be a big success. Mostly minority students from Sam Houston High School recently met with of- ficers from the San Antonio Police Department, U.S. At- torney Richard Durbin, and officials from the FBI. The program is called “Bridging the Gap” and the goal is to teach young people how to respect and obey the commands of police officers and other law enforcement officials. “Do what they ask you to do, whether you agree with them or not,” Officer Larry Norman, a tactics instructor at the training academy, said as he spoke to a group of students. According to a report from KSAT News, the program is designed to teach kids why police officers sometimes become very upset. Michelle Lee, an FBI special agent, told the kids that the way cops treat them might have nothing to do with those kids or that call. “Consider that the officer may have just came from a call where he found a dead baby, a child that was killed by the parents,” she said to the students. “He could have come from a scene where there was a brutal stabbing, shooting or something like this,” she continued. “The attitude that you give is going to be what you get,” Officer Daniel Loudermilk told his group of students during a mock traffic stop where the kids got to play the role of police officers. “Do we make mistakes at times?” he asked them. “Unfortunately, yes, just like everybody else. “But ours get blown up even bigger because the eyes are already on us as law enforcement.” Officer Norman told kids and reporters that things would only get better when people understand police officers better. “I think right now it’s extremely important for the community to know exactly what our police jobs are, and the different challenges that we face,” he told KSAT re- porters. “One of the biggest challenges that we do face is that we want the community to trust us. We want these kids to know that they can call us at any time if they need some help.” Sam Houston High School Principal Darnell White told the kids that talking back to a police officer is never a good idea. “Especially with our young people who are fol- lowing direction from those people, what we learned today is that situations go awry when instructions are given and people, for what- ever reason, decide not to follow those instructions,” White said. Do what they ask you to do, whether you agree with them or not Officers, agents explain real world to kids T here’s a big debate raging about whether American police of- ficers are “guardians,” or “warriors.” The truth is that most cops will have to play both roles at some point during their careers. Here’s a bigger truth – in addition to being warriors, guardians, sheep dogs or whatever else, cops are also human beings. There’s a lot in a law en- forcement officer’s life that’s specific to that profession. Growing body of research says “Facebook makes us depressed” But police officers also do what everyone else does as well. These days that means spending a lot of time on social media. Now Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are not univer- sal. Many people consider them to be pretty useless and nothing more than an online echo chamber designed to give the peanut gallery a big- ger microphone to mouth off about this or that. But many people find themselves unable to avoid checking Facebook for new items and actually get stressed out if they can’t check their Twitter account because they’re in a meet- ing. The question from a men- tal health standpoint is this – can using social media actu- ally make you depressed? A recent US-based study, sponsored by the National Institute for Mental Health, identified a “strong and significant association be- tween social media use and depression in a sample of US young adults.” Researchers determined that the more time a young adult spends using social media, the higher the odds of depression or depressive episodes. There are two parts worth looking at here. The first is the risk of con- stant social media use might pose to mental health of our kids. But even more impor- tantly, it’s important for us grown-ups to realize that there is a dark side to things like Facebook that can im- pact our mental health as well. It’s not hard to believe that turning off the phone and going for a walk near some trees might have the opposite effect of an online rage party where everyone’s typing in all caps about all the things that make them angry. Everyone has these beautiful families and they all get along and do all kinds of fun stuff together. None of them ever get sad or think about suicide. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I the only one that seems to hanging on for dear life? 2016InternationalPoliceWorkDog Training/CertificationConference Visitourwebsite www.ipwda.org forinformationandregistration. WEHOPETOSEEYOUTHERE! Train,certify,networkandenjoythe beautytheSmokieshavetooffer. Come join us in the beautiful SMOKY MOUNTAINS in Sevier Co. Tennessee Make it a family event!!