Community News
12th Annual
Shop with a Cop
this Christmas
Donations Welcome!
The Conyers Police Department is partnering with
the Conyers Wal-Mart to help make this Christmas
The Conyers Police
Annual Shop with a Cop
personnel will accompany
community partner to assist the Conyers Police in
Wilson.
Since the program began, approximately 1,200 children
QIQIQ
Real Hero Report | November 2019 | 19
training was not nearly as effective as it should be. They believed
existing “a lot a little” mentality. Training on a regular basis is
to permanently incorporate BJJ mandatory training for all MPD
recruits before, during and after the academy. The concept was
that they would be required to attend weekly training up until the
time they begin working the road.
The turning point for the MPD was when a command staff
scheduled DT session at a local BJJ gym. The class was taught by
the owner, Humberto “Beto” Borges, who is a BJJ Third Degree
Black Belt. He was impressed by the practicality of the training
taking night classes and quickly was impressed that size, strength,
became: “Why hasn’t law enforcement adopted this training
sooner?” He pointed out to the DT instructors that most people
agree average citizens do not like to see law enforcement punch
preemptively, he collaborated with the MPD training staff and
decided to move forward with a proposal to make BJJ training
to develop a game plan.
In order to convince the rest of the command staff to consider
adopting the program, it was immediately clear the program
needed to consist of three things: be reasonable, sustainable and
affordable. Certainly, the department could tell our DT instructors
to offer more classes or have additional open mat sessions, but
an unnecessary burden on our instructors. The gym we ultimately
chose offered nine classes a week during the morning, afternoon,
they could attend. So, two out of three main issues, reasonable
and sustainable, were immediately achieved by choosing a
creditable local BJJ gym.
As to the affordability aspect; we negotiated a lower rate with
the gym we chose to what the department’s training budget
could afford. In addition, the department purchased multiple Gi’s
(training garments) from the gym so each recruit would be issued
their own Gi and personally must be responsible for it while in the
recruits joined the department, they were required to attend
with zero injuries. We now have several groups attending and a
ended. Additionally, the MPD staff prepared a short press release
and created social media posts about the program attended by
these seven graduating recruits. It was apparent the media keyed
in on the fact that this BJJ training is designed to reduce injuries
supervisors from other law enforcement agencies.