Village Cop Heads to FBI Academy

Westhampton Beach Mayor Conrad Teller, Southampton Town Police Chief and – not to mention scores of other high-ranking police personnel from across the world – have attended the Federal Bureau of Investigation training academy in Quantico, Virginia.

The next in line? Westhampton Beach Village Police executive officer Lieutenant Trevor Gonce. Dean is sponsoring Gonce’s three-month intensive training to prep him for future high-level police work.

“It’s required for someone to ascend the ranks,” Dean said. “It’s the most prestigious thing you can attend.”

Dean attended the FBI course in 2002, shortly after he moved from the town police department to the top spot in the village. Former Village Mayor Robert Strebel sponsored Dean. In most departments, candidates have to at least have a lieutenant ranking to be considered for the program, Dean said.

Gonce has held the executive officer position since 2003, and the lieutenant title since last year. He was also a lieutenant in the village police department prior to 2007.

Gonce’s first day at the academy – funded by the federal government at no expense to the village – is Jan. 8. Academy attendees can pick their own curriculum, but Gonce plans on taking master’s level courses in media relations and on police work involving computers and video, important because of the have in their patrol cars and at their Mill Road headquarters.

“There’s also between 250 and 300 other law enforcement officers not only from the U.S. but from around the world that will be there,” Gonce said. “I’ll get different views from other people about how they’ve done policing.”

Networking was one of the program highlights for both Dean and Teller. Dean remembers hearing about how southern states – where law enforcement isn’t unionized – handled disciplinary issues.

“’We just fire the guy, they said’” recalls Dean.

Teller, who went to the academy as Southampton Town police chief in 1975, remembers meeting both a New York City Police Department detective, who covered seven blocks that contained 37,000 people, and a sheriff from Arizona, who patrolled his an enormous, sparsely-populated acerage on horseback, in a pick-up truck and on foot.

“It brings you in association with top cops from all over the country,” Teller said. “You get a broader perspective on what goes on in the world.”

Dean and the other 12 members of the police department will cover Gonce’s duties – including issuing media reports – while he’s gone.