By Dale Singer
Whether he’s working with students, teachers or the public at large, Josh Hamel, ’09, concentrates on both protection and connection as a police officer.
Hamel, who graduated from Maryville’s criminal justice program, fills several roles for the Town and Country Police Department. He helps manage the Citizen Police Academy, where the public can learn what it’s like to be on the force, and he works as a certified school resource officer. There, he wants to make sure students see police officers in a positive light.
“One of the things we try to do every single day is have each officer go to a school,” Hamel said. “It helps children feel comfortable around police. They don’t think, ‘Oh, the police are here because of something going on.’ It humanizes us.”
The Citizen Police Academy gives Hamel another way to help civilians feel comfortable with officers. Members of the public learn about procedures like traffic enforcement, crime scene investigation and criminal law.
Class members also do ride-alongs with officers, where they can see firsthand the kind of training police personnel need. “It really helps to show the split-second decisions we have to make,” Hamel said. “It makes them understand how difficult some of our decisions are.”
Hamel came to Maryville to play baseball and was drawn to criminology, with a minor in psychology, to learn how the mind works. He also met his wife, Danielle, who graduated with a nursing degree.
His latest connection with Maryville has been working with faculty and staff on a sadly necessary fact of modern life — active violence training, to be prepared if the unthinkable happens on campus.
He teaches four possible courses of action: educate, evade, escape or engage. Which course to take depends on the situation, Hamel said, but the basic goal is to make everyone understand what might have to be done before any emergency happens.
“An active shooter or people being killed is not a very easy topic to talk about,” he adds, “but whenever I do my presentation, it’s amazing to see the eyes open and the brains start to really work and go through the scenarios. They’re really thinking about it.”
