Nineteen new officers took their oath of service and accepted their badges on Monday after completing the four-week basic jail officer training course.
The BJOT is mandated for all corrections officers by the Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council and Georgia Sheriff’s Association. The comprehensive curriculum trains future corrections officers in many aspects of jail operations, including critical intervention training, security procedures and even anger management.
Sheriff Roy Harris III presented the class with their badges and led them in the oath of service. Family and friends joined the graduates on stage to pin on their badges. Harris said he was impressed by the size of the graduating class.
“We’ve had a couple like that in the years that I’ve been here, but it’s unusual. That’s a big class,” Harris said, “I’m very happy to see that many of them get through the process.”
Harris presented two graduates with certificates for outstanding achievement. Joshua Mannon received highest grade on the BJOT final exam, with 95 percent correct. One graduate, Jessica Knight, passed the course with the highest percentage ever recorded at the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office, with a 98 percent average.
The work is not yet over for this group. They will now receive six weeks of on-the-job training with a field training officer inside the Chatham County jail. After that six-week introductory period, they’ll work autonomously as corrections officers. But Harris says that doesn’t happen until they’re ready.
“We don’t cut them loose on their own until they’re comfortable with the job they have to do, and we’re comfortable that they can do it. But nobody’s really ever alone in this facility,” Harris said. “Everybody’s got immediate backup.”
The president of the graduating class, Glen Campbell, addressed the group before they received their badges. He spoke kindly of his colleagues, and noted that the power of prayer helped he and his other classmates through the challenges of the last four weeks.
“We, as a unit, made sure that we all understood and made it through any task that was thrown our way, and now we will reap the benefits of our labor,” Campbell said. “Although we may go to different shifts or different units, we have become a band of brothers and sisters that no one can break.”
THE GRADUATING CLASS
Charles Brisbin, Maecon Bryant, Glen Campbell — class president, Samantha Cooper, Melissa Forbes, Zakia Glenn, Yasmine Griffin, Lavashia Little-Holt, Jessica Knight, Joshua Mannon, Tamekia Mitchell, Elliott Reid, Chiquita Rodriguez, Josephine Santiago Ramos, Eugene Solomon, Sunnie Underwood, Monsia Washington, Stephanie Wilson, William Zehr.