Since late January, a senior from Kingston High School has served as an intern with the Town of Ulster Police Department, a one-off program which could lead to further internship opportunities in the future.
The Ulster Town Board approved the internship at its January meeting with the unnamed student getting started later in the month. According to Police Chief Kyle Berardi, the student will spend a total of 54 hours interning with the department to fulfill his curriculum-based obligations; while the student began in dispatch, he’s already observed many different areas of police work.
“Obviously [dispatch is] the epicenter of the police department, where all calls come in, where radio transmissions come in,” said Berardi. “He’s worked over in detectives, and they’ve kind of showed him the ropes relative to processing crime scenes, physical evidence, DNA evidence. He’s observed patrol, addressing processing and complaint taking. And I actually had him in one of our SWAT team trainings to kind of see what that SWAT team and the negotiators do.”
Berardi added that the student has learned in no uncertain terms that police work is unlike its portrayal in film and television.
“It’s not all glory,” Berardi said. “I brought him to a town board meeting where we have to get approvals to purchase, to hire and promote people, things like that. I’m trying to give him a mix of everything so he’s not just getting the CSI effect, where we resolve stuff in an hour and we’re good to go. In the end it’s a lot of paperwork and sitting around and waiting.”
Berardi declined to name the student, citing privacy issues. School officials have also not revealed his name. Councilman Eric Kitchen, who worked with Berardi to put the internship together, said he was a good student.
“I read the resume of this young intern,” Kitchen said. “It’s quite impressive for a young kid his age, he’s done a lot, he’s accomplished a lot, he’s a very good student in school and has a great grade point average.”
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