Sheriff Bill Brown, center, swore-in six custody deputies and six sheriff’s deputies this week.
Sheriff Bill Brown recently swore-in six custody deputies and six sheriff’s deputies at the Allan Hancock College Public Safety Academy.
The separate and socially distanced ceremonies took place before the Santa Maria college’s graduation ceremonies.
On Tuesday, the six custody deputies graduated from the CORE Custody Academy along with two other classmates. They completed 220 hours of course instruction.
The instruction included emergency planning in a custody facility, report writing, ethics, investigation procedures, classification of inmates, contraband detection, arrest and control, physical training and direct supervision training.
The graduates include Jose Blanco, Wei-Chieh Shih, Salvador Vargas, Samuel Villegas, Lia Welkom and Glenn Williams.
Custody Deputy Welkon was honored as the class valedictorian, Custody Deputy Blanco received the Ron Battles Award, and Custody Deputy Vargas earned the Leadership Award.
On Wednesday, six Sheriff’s Deputies graduated from the Basic Law Enforcement Academy, along with 10 other classmates, completing 751 hours of course instruction.
Sheriff’s Office graduates include Steven Cruz, Emanuel DeAlba, Yeshella Jimenez, Tyler Odekirk, Christopher Portman and Harrison Tabora.
Deputy Odekirk was honored as co-valedictorian and earned the Marksmanship award, Physical Fitness award and Scenarios award.
The new deputies will take what they’ve learned in the past six months and continue to grow in the Field Training program. Once they complete that, they’ll be patrolling Santa Barbara County as solo deputies.
Visit SBSheriff.org to learn more information about careers in law enforcement.
The swearing-in ceremonies are also available for viewing on the Sheriff’s Office’s Instagram page: SantaBarbaraCountySheriff.
email: gmccormick@newspress.com
