Columbia County police training center graduates its 1st class

APPLING, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The Columbia County Regional Training Center was founded in December 2023, and now its first class of graduates is pinned and ready to serve.

Across the state, law enforcement agencies are sending their cadets and sheriff candidates to our area for training.

“I just wanted to continue to serve the people of the United States. It’s what I like to do,” said Gilbet Bernal, who now is an Augusta University Police Officer.

Bernal was in the Army before deciding to law enforcement. After more than 400 hours of training in Columbia County, he’s ready to make a difference.

“Serving the people, and just doing a good job by making sure I help out. Making my family proud,” he said. “My son wants to be a cop already.”

Columbia County Sheriff Clay Whittle worked hard to make the center a reality, seeing the first-class graduate made him not be able to sit still.

“I was like a worm in hot ashes,” said Whittle.

He was anxious and overall excited about what this means for the area.

“Every agency in the CSRA right now are short people, some are horrendously short, we’re down 51 here,” said Whittle.

The Georgia Peace Officers Standards and Training Council says the state dropped 7,500 of law enforcement over the pandemic.

“We are climbing out of that and we’re making significant progress with that, but it has taken time to do that. So eight people is significant, especially to an area this relatively rural,” said Executive Director of POST Mike Ayers.

Agencies big and small are feeling the shortages.

Glascock County Sheriff Jeremy Kelley said: “They’re working maybe 40 hours of overtime in a pay period. I’m taking extra shifts along with doing my sheriff responsibilities.”

Glascock County graduated their first female officer on Friday, Kelley says. With an extra officer, Kelley hopes to lighten the workload.

“They can get some rest and be better officers on the shifts at work,” said Kelley.

POST says that Georgia ranks last in all states in course length, so they’re working to change the curriculum to make it more in-depth and go from 400 required hours to 800.

Whittle says he wants this to be in effect by 2025.

The training center will start its next class in mid-April to keep training cadets and getting them ready to be police officers.

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