I get sick to my stomach every time I see those online advertisements suggesting that in order to become a police officer, you must take their over-priced police academy course. WOW, is that even a requirement to become a cop?! I’ve been a police officer going on a decade now and I’ve never met a cop that got hired just because they took an online police academy course. Why? Because it’s irrelevant and it’s a bunch of crap.
There’s no way to simulate a vehicle pursuit situation via the internet or a felony stop scenario for that matter. Online police academy courses are a bit hilarious if you ask me. The only way to benefit from being a police academy graduate is to actually attend the police officer training academy in your respective state.
I know this is an era where everything is instant and I know you can even get your high school diploma online, but in this situation you can not substitute life or death training over the internet. You’ll have to be physically present in order to benefit from the defensive tactics training, firearms training, traffic stop training, first responder/first aid training, EVOC, and much more.
You can get a general overview of the police academy online, but as far as getting a competitive edge over someone just because you graduated from an online police academy won’t do much for you.
The one thing that you can do online is study up for course exams that you’ll have to pass at the criminal justice police academy. When you attend a police academy in your respective state, you’ll be required to pass course exams like criminal law, traffic law, and more. The only thing that can help you with these course exams is a police academy preparation guide or a law enforcement academy review guide. All the other crap can’t and won’t help you.
If you want to become a police officer as quickly as possible, go ahead and pay your way to the police academy. Doing it online will not be advantageous to you.
