June is the season when many friends and family come
together to celebrate graduations. It was perhaps no different for friends,
colleagues, and members of the Barnes family who celebrated Randy Barnes’
graduation on June 8.
All right, maybe it was a little different; for you see Westminster
Police Department Captain Randy D. Barnes, at age 50, graduated last month on June
8 from the 229th session of the prestigious FBI National Academy in Quantico,
Va., which began April 1. He was presented his diploma by FBI Director Robert
S. Mueller III. The academy, which began in 1935, has to date, had more than
37,000 persons graduate.
Captain Barnes graduated from Westminster High School
in 1976, the year Chief H. Leroy Day retired and Sam R. Leppo was appointed Chief.
In the past he has taken classes at Carroll and Catonsville
Community College, in addition to attending the Western Maryland Police Academy in Hagerstown, MD in 1980. He has also
taken a long list of trainings, including courses such as Special Weapons and
Tactics School, Investigative & Electronic Surveillance Training, Law
Enforcement Executive Development, and Firearms Instructor School.
He has been with the Westminster Police Department 28 years.
Much has changed since that hot summer day on August 7, 1979, when Captain
Barnes reported for duty when the Westminster Police Department was still
located in Westminster
City Hall.
This was in the days before the department moved from its two-room
office in City Hall to the basement of the Longwell Municipal
Center in 1980. When
Captain Barnes first joined the department folks taken in police custody were
often handcuffed to the radiators in the office or locked in a storage room in
the basement.
After the department moved to the Longwell building, its
radio communication began providing 24 hour service from a dispatch center that
was linked to a new concept called the “911 emergency system.
And in 1981 the department started a “Crisis Response Team.”
Captain Barnes was part of that team that was shot at in a 15-hour barricade
situation in town on January 30, 1984.
Today Captain Barnes is the Commander of the Field Services
Bureau and the Incident Commander for the Carroll County Crisis Response Team. The
Field Service Bureau consists of Patrol, K-9, Crisis Response Team, Traffic
Safety, Parking Management, and Emergency Management.
The basic foundation of any successful and thriving
community is public safety and in the last number of years the changes in the
pursuit of public safety have been profound and precipitous.
And one thing that will remain constant in the future is
that the changes will keep coming. It is in this light that Captain Barnes said
he “jumped at the opportunity (to attend the FBI Academy.)
It has been a dream to have the opportunity to go…”
In a recent telephone conversation the first thing that he
mentioned is that he “couldn’t have done it without the support of his wife and
children.”
As far as the constant changes and challenges facing law
enforcement these day, Captain Barnes emphasized, “When you think that you have
learned enough to be good at your profession that is when you must realize that
there is so much more to learn… One of the major benefits of attending the FBI
National Academy was the opportunity to network with law enforcement executives
from all over the country – and the world for that matter.”
His dormitory roommate for the 10 weeks at the academy was a
lieutenant (Bruce Banks) with the Illinois State Police internal affairs
division.
“He was among 300 law enforcement officials from throughout
the United States,
as well as those from 25 foreign countries -- who attended” this academy
session. Appointment of candidates to the FBI academy is a highly selective
process. Less than 1 percent of the nation's law enforcement officials are
chosen to attend the program,” according to a recent Westminster Eagle news
brief.
Captain Barnes said this gave him ample opportunity for
networking with other top law enforcement professionals and being exposed to
“new ideas… and getting good ideas from
other police professionals who are dealing with similar challenges (as
Westminster.)
“The City of Westminster is not the Lone Ranger when it
comes to many of the current law enforcement challenges we face. It was good to
gather some insights into what has been tried and worked in other areas of the
country facing similar challenges,” Captain Barnes explained.
Law enforcement today is all about ever-changing challenges…
And “in an era of decreasingly finite resources the department needs to be
constantly focusing on more training and exposing ourselves to new operating efficiencies
and cutting edge technologies…”
The academic portion of the day at the academy went from 8
am to 5:30. After dinner, they studied, worked-out and ran to kept in shape,
and used the time to work on research papers. His main paper for the session
was on “Methods of processing latent fingerprints.”
“I selected courses which will (immediately) benefit Westminster citizens and
the department,” Captain Barnes elaborated. The classes, which are academically
accredited through its affiliation with the University of Virginia,
included legal issues, advanced investigative techniques, police management,
professional ethics, and fitness training.
As a result, “Captain Barnes earned undergraduate college
credits upon completion of academy courses, which included the following: Legal
Issues for Command Level Officers; Labor Law Issues for Law Enforcement
Administration; Forensic Science for Police Administrators; Chemical Agents in
Law Enforcement; Contemporary Issues in Police and Media Relations; Gangs,
Developmental Issues, and Criminal Behavior; and Fitness in Law Enforcement,”
according to a news release from Westminster Police Chief Jeff Spaulding.
Chief Spaulding, along with Major Ron Stevens are also FBI
Academy graduates; having had the opportunity to attend while they were a
member of other police agencies before joining the Westminster Police
Department. Captain Barnes is the first
police officer to attend the academy while with the Westminster Department.
Captain Barnes, a Lacrosse enthusiast, said “each week there
was a physical fitness challenge. As the weeks would go by the physical fitness
challenge would get more difficult. They were all named after characters,
events, or features of the Wizard of Oz.”
They included “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore,” the “Tin Man
Trot,” the Munchkin Run - 4.2 miles; Journey to Oz - 5.2 miles and finally, the
Yellow Brick Road, a 6.1-mile run, once completed, they were awarded a yellow
brick inscribed with “FBINA 229.”
One of the highlights of the FBI Academy experience was
touring the Marine Corps Museum. Captain Barnes shared that one of the most
emotional experiences occurred during Law Enforcement Memorial Week in the
early of part of May.
Three buses of children of police officers who were killed
in the line of duty in the previous year visited the Academy and the Marine
Corps Museum. They were accompanied by 100 police motorcycle escorts from the
departments in which the slain officers served. “I will never forget it,” said
Captain Barnes.
