The following letter was submitted by the Plainfield, Indiana Police Department.
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September 26, 2012
To the JAYC Foundation,
First of all let me thank you for the opportunity to take part in the past couple of exercises we have done with the horses and Debbie Anderson. Her facility is amazing and she is doing wonderful things here in Plainfield Indiana.
So many times officers don’t get the training and support they need in our profession. We are just thrown into situations and you learn by trial and error which makes officers uncomfortable at times and can be very stressful plus overwhelming for some. So taking officers out of their comfort zone in a controlled environment is tremendously helpful and thought provoking at times for the officers.
These exercises brought out leadership from officers I did not expect and also put officers in an environment that they knew nothing about so they had to use common sense, observation skills and work together as a team. The exercises we are doing are so outside of the box with horses but that makes everyone involved think more and you can’t just go through the motions with the horses. Law Enforcement is very reluctant at times to do things different or move forward with times of how things are done because they never want to appear that they are not in control. This training definitely brought out different things in my officers that I have not seen and even brought things out of myself.
The portion of the day with Terry Probyn was very eye opening for my officers and they truly want to do the right thing for families who are in this same situation. Officers at the actual level of working officers want to find ANY missing child and bring them home safe to their families. They really do not have a hidden agenda and it’s when department heads and leaders get involved that the agendas become clear. It can be very disheartening for officers still doing the job because they got into police work to help people and that’s all they are trying to do. When they can’t is when the stress sets in and things may not get as to what is best for the case and family.
Keep doing what you do with the JAYC Foundation and keep moving forward and pushing for things to get better… I am!
Capt. Carri Weber
Plainfield, Indiana Police Department