A new way of training police officers, partially developed in Nebraska, is being adopted by departments across the country.
The Blue Courage training program was so successful as a pilot project last year, it's now being implemented statewide in Nebraska; by the state patrol, Douglas County Sheriff's Office and the Omaha Police Department.
Part of the success of Blue Courage is its ability to get officers to admit that most people have personal biases, said former Omaha police lieutenant and former Nebraska City police chief William Muldoon.
Muldoon is the director of the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center.
"It’s normal to have bias,” Muldoon said. “What's not normal and not good in policing is if we police from it. Community police, policing with our communities is something we want to do with them, not to them."
Another major piece of training is to remind officers about the magnitude of their jobs.
"There’s no other profession where the actions of one individual police officer can impact an individual for a lifetime and a community for generations,” Muldoon said. “That's very true. You only have to take a look at some of the incidents that have happened, both good and bad."
Sergeant Sherie Thomas, an in-service police training staff, went through Blue Courage when it was a pilot project and says she's hopeful the training will improve police and community relationships.
"The training will be positive not only for the officers, but for the community as a whole because the way that the training would affect the officers may be able to improve the way they interact with citizens," Thomas said.
Blue Courage is inspirational and helps officers from becoming callous, said Police Training Commander Laurie Scott, with OPD nearly a quarter century.
"With all the negativity there can be towards law enforcement officers, we still do a lot of good and I think that that's one of the biggest things that we pull out of it,” Scott said. “That during your darkest days or your down days, there's still a lot of great things and positive impacts that law enforcement make every single second."
Omaha police have 57 recruits that start class Monday.
They’ll all go through Blue Courage training.
