Police recruits finally are with the force

Officer Dean Leslie does smile after all.

The recruits of academy Class 6-09 didn't believe it was possible -- not during those six long months when he was all business, scolding, punishing and pushing them toward the finish line at the Metropolitan Police Department Academy.

Now, on the eve of their December graduation, he can finally ease up. His job is done.

So too can Sgt. Dan Zehnder, who so many times seemed to relish his role as the hammer, doling out an untold number of push-ups, sit-ups and laps when class discipline strayed.

"You guys are almost cops. In 24 hours, the streets of Vegas will be in dire straits," Zehnder says with a smile.

The 22 recruits -- 21 men and one woman -- wear the long-sleeved dark brown winter shirts of a Las Vegas police officer. All they're missing are the badges.

Those come tomorrow, but first comes final inspection.

It's nothing like the first inspection. No stress. No running. No push-ups. No yelling.

Just an informal welcome from Sheriff Doug Gillespie and his top commanders.

"Dean and Dan have taught you to do your job, taught you to wear seat belts, taught you how to approach a door, how to talk to someone," Gillespie says. "They taught you how to do your job. There's a right way. There's a wrong way. You were taught the right way."

To get here the recruits did thousands of push-ups, memorized hundreds of definitions and codes, and sat through hundreds of hours of classes. They passed 50 written and practical tests, topped off by the grueling six-day final exam called Practical Application/Comprehensive Testing, or PACT.

The test puts each recruit though dozens of real-world scenarios -- domestic violence calls, traffic stops, sexual assaults -- that must be completed from initial contact to the final signature on the paperwork.

Police Department employees stand in as the victims and perpetrators, but they play their parts as realistically as possible.

"Just make yourself breathe and think about what you're supposed to be doing. You've been given all the skills to be successful. Let's make it happen," officer Ryan Cook tells the recruits before they head out into the field with their graders.

For most recruits, PACT is the most stressful part of the academy. They've worked six months to get to this point. If they fail, the best they can hope for it to be recycled to another class. At worst they'll be out of the academy altogether.

Most recruits who make it this far will pass PACT, though each class usually has one or two who fail.

That's the case for Class 6-09.

Garrett Forni, who made it through six months at the academy despite having a target on him from Day One, didn't pass. With his white-collar background, Forni struggled with his threat perception, Zehnder said, but he was recycled to another class and made it through on the second try.

He was one of 18 original class recruits to finish the academy. The other nine original members moved on for various reasons.

The first casualty, Sean Barrett, wasn't prepared for the grueling physical demands. Midwestern native Jacob Kelecava couldn't adapt to the desert. Michelle Domanico, who overcame her fears to finish the pepper spray test, quit a few weeks later to teach tennis again.

Others struggled with the academics or the mental stresses at the academy. Some couldn't mesh the daily demands of homework and studying with their family duties.

But overall, Zehnder had high praise for Class 6-09.

The class wasn't the smartest or the most physically fit, but it was the best all-around class in the 18 he's overseen, he tells them.

"You're certainly not the people who walked in the door here. You're not the knuckleheads from Day One," he says. "You made it."

At the academy the recruits left behind, budget cuts and the lack of new positions led to a largely scaled-back operation.

When the academy was at its busiest, a new class started every month as the Police Department added nearly 600 new officers under the More Cops sales tax.

With those positions filled and an agency budget being tightened amid the recession, hiring has all but stopped.

The academy staff was cut back -- only two classes were held this year -- and another might not be held for some time.

For the former recruits, it means they could cross paths with the same officers who screamed in their faces, forced them to do thousands of pushups and stressed them out to no end. Yet by the end of the grueling six months, the recruits who make it look at their task masters in a different light.

In those first few weeks the recruits questioned whether all those pushups and laps and screams were worth being a cop. For some recruits, it wasn't. But for those who survived the weeding-out process, the pain and stress served a purpose and helped drive them to the finish.

"If you can get through our TAC officers at the academy, then you want the job," Travis Chapman said.

Nathan Herlean credits Leslie for pushing the class day in and day out.

"I love the guy," he said. "Hated him. Scared to death of the guy. But he made sure we didn't let our guard down the entire time."

The auditorium at The Orleans is filling with relatives and friends who came to see their recruits take the last step from civilian to police officer.

There are prayers and speeches and a congratulatory video with U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign.

Then one by one the recruits step to the front for their badges. They raise their hands and take the oath.

"Well, they really are police officers now. Congratulations," Gillespie says.

When all the speeches are done, Leslie stands before his class one last time, looks it over from one side to the other.

"Class of 6-2009, dismissed!"

The recruits stand, united now as the newest class of Las Vegas police officers, and repeat the class motto.

"Who dares, wins! Class 6-09!"

Nathan Herlean scans the computer screen in his police cruiser.

A half-dozen calls sit waiting for a cop to respond. Many of them are 416B's -- mostly loud music calls -- on an unusually slow Saturday night in the Northeast Area Command.

Herlean, just a few months out of field training, can't stand seeing the calls on hold. A lot of cops ignore them, but for him each one represents something to be done, something that won't get done unless someone does it, so he punches up one of loud music calls and heads to it.

The night before he had rushed to a deadly shootout between officers and an armed robbery suspect and later rounded up a group of armed gang members who terrorized a party.

No such excitement tonight.

He pulls up to the loud music call, and the party's already over.

As a graduate of police academy Class 6-09, Herlean is the junior member of his eight-man graveyard squad, but not by much. The most experienced officer has just 2½ years on the job.

When he joined the Metropolitan Police Department, Herlean left behind a decade of experience in real estate, but he doesn't regret his decision to become a police officer.

"There are really cool times, the bad times, the crazy times, but everything about it I've loved," he says.

That wasn't the case with the police academy, six grueling months of academics, stress and physical pain.

"I hated it," he says, adding he would prefer squaring off with a group of gangbangers than the academy staff.

Most of his classmates would agree. But their time at the academy paid off as all 22 graduates of Class 6-09 passed field training and are patrolling the streets of Las Vegas, earning an entry-level salary of about $51,000. Most have done so in an anonymity expected of rookie officers.

Not so for Thomas Mendiola. A recycled recruit who graduated with Class 6-09, he was one of three officers who shot and killed a man with a gun outside the Summerlin Costco store last summer.

The officers' actions were deemed justified by a coroner's inquest jury, but the controversial shooting helped lead to changes to the inquest.

Herlean has had his own close calls, but hasn't had to pull the trigger yet.

Since he's on the graveyard shift, Herlean spends more time with his wife and three sons than he did in his previous career. He never misses a family activity, even if it means showing up on just a few hours' sleep. His kids think it's cool their dad's a cop, and he loves the job.

But it comes with downsides.

On duty or off, he's always on alert, like someone flipped a switch that never turns off.

Herlean tried to go to the gym without his gun, but that lasted only a couple of trips. He took a vacation to San Diego and couldn't relax. He catches himself at stoplights staring down people in the next car.

He goes out less now, preferring to stay home. It's about the only place he can let his guard down.

"You're always on guard, but I don't want it to be that way," he says. "But I'm not going to win that battle."

There's also the threat of getting killed on the job.

Herlean says he's scared of dying, and he figures he'll be shot at sooner or later. He already has a couple calls a week that he looks back on and thinks about how things could have gone bad.

But those come with the career, one that he's still settling into. He's content with his decision to be a cop, yet he still feels like he's straddling the line between his old life and his new life.

In the real estate business, Herlean was a collaborator who enjoyed gathering opinions and working things out. Now he's got to be assertive, using his "command presence" to take control of every situation.

Academy staffers always talked about the importance of showing up to a scene and looking and acting like you're in charge, even if you're unsure or scared. Zehnder said he'd like to put all recruits through acting school because on the street that's often the most important skill they'll use.

Herlean admits he has to fake it sometimes, but that's part of being a police officer. When people on the scene called the police, you're the one who has to help.

"I can't call the cops," he says. "I have to go there and figure out what the problem is and solve the problem. I'm the answer."

He's a cop.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.