Oswego, New York.  Central New York will gain fifteen new police officers who graduated from the Oswego Regional Police Academy on Friday, November 4, 2022. In addition to the eight graduates who will join the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office as deputies, two officers from the Oswego Police Department graduated, one from SUNY Oswego University Police and one officer from each of the following police departments: Dewitt, Manlius, Seneca Falls and Ithaca.

The new sheriff's deputies include Deputy M. Emond, Deputy A. Forte, Deputy D. Hoag, Deputy H. Howland, Deputy R. Kiefer, Deputy R. LeBeau, Deputy B. Muckey and Deputy D. Rivers. Sheriff Don Hilton, members of his command, and training staff from law enforcement agencies such as New York State Troopers and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (D.E.C.) were on hand to congratulate the deputy sheriffs at the academy graduation at Fulton Alliance Church.

The graduation ceremony included a video presentation created by the recruits, posting of colors with bagpipes and drums from New York State D.E.C. and awards were given as follows:

EVOC Best Driver: A. Forte, OCSO
Physical Training/Overall Fitness: M. Emond, OCSO
Firearms Top Shooter: A. Forte, OCSO
Defensive Tactics: H. Howland, OCSO
Salutatorian: B. Muckey, OSCO
Valedictorian: D. Rivers, OCSO
Honor Graduate: J. Gibbs, Manlius Police Department

Sergeant Prior, director of the Academy, opened the program with words of commendation to the graduates, reminding them of community service activities and how they should try to make a positive difference every day in their communities.  As Honor Graduate, Officer Gibbs spoke and offered encouragement to his fellow graduates and praised their perseverance and commitment to the core values of honor, respect, integrity and professionalism.

Over the past 28 weeks, each graduate completed over 1000 hours of training, which is well above the DCJS requirement of 600 hours. Academy graduates completed over six months of training, which included emergency vehicle operations, firearms qualifications, defensive and control tactics, vehicle and traffic law, NYS penal law, fair and impartial policing, crisis intervention, de-escalation and other areas.

Following the ceremony, all graduates will enter their final phase of training as patrol deputies where they will spend up to 16 weeks with a senior field training officer.