CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The explorer competition brought together close to 500 people between the ages of 14-20 all wanting to pursue law enforcement careers.
Although their young this competition is no joke.
The explorers are from different law enforcement agencies and practice and study everything from...
“Disturbances, traffic, stops, felony traffic stops, DWI events. things that we would encounter on patrol,” CCPD Senior Officer, Lillian Penick said.
They put it all to the test come competition time and are graded on how well they execute the certain task.
“They get anywhere from a zero which means they didn't meet any standard at all or maybe they forgot to do something, all the way up to a five which means perfect,” Penick said.
And while the explorers are not being scored on real life scenarios it does help influence what career path they want to take.
“A lot of times people come into the explorer program or even come into the academy wanting to be a police officer not having any idea what our job entails,” Penick said.
Twenty-year-old Angela Gonzales said being a police officer is her calling.
“I feel like if I can help one person a day that means I’m doing my job,” she said.
She lives in San Antonio and says she hopes to work for their police department one day but until she says she enjoys competing.
“Even though we messed up we're still together, we're still a family,” she said. “And I think every misstep we do helps us build that bond.”
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