Great Police Work: Winthrop Explorer Post 99 Members Attend Conference

The Winthrop Police Explorers Post 99 is a group of young individuals from the community who have been training intensively to become the next secret servicemen, police officers, and soldiers. During the week of July 14, Post 99 participated in The National Law Enforcement Exploring Conference at Indiana University, achieving second place in White Collar Crime, and finishing in the top 10% in Burglary in Progress.

“Lieutenant [Frank] Scarpa, as Post Commander, and I have operated Winthrop Police Explorers Post 99 for almost 19 years. It is truly the most rewarding thing I have done as a police officer,” said Steve Rogers, Senior Advisor. “We would like to sincerely thank the Town of Winthrop for their support in financing the post through such fundraisers as Police Cook Book, Dueling Pianos at Cottage Park Yacht Club, and Canning.”

The National Law Enforcement Exploring Conference is conducted every other year. It is attended by thousands of explorers and adult leaders, who gather for a week of competitions, seminars, demonstrations, exhibitions, and recreation.

Peter Carbone, Joe Ferrino, Julia Flowers, Julio Hysa, Chris Miccichi, Michael Mahoney, Samantha Petersen, Vanessa Petersen, Jorge Roman, and Beau Schlichting, of Post 99, competed against major posts such as Miami, New York, the California Highway Patrol, and US Customs.

They participated in events like traffic stops, bomb threats, domestic intervention, traffic accident reconstruction, first aid officer down, and white collar crime. The explorers also attended seminars to learn about drug investigation, secret service executive protection, self-defense, border patrol, domestic terrorism, and leadership.

In addition, there was a job fair for explorers to learn about federal, state, and local jobs.

“Congratulations to Post 99 and all the explorers who worked so hard,” Rogers said. “Thank you to the officers at home in our department who make this program such a great success: Timothy Callinan, Maryellen Crisafi, Michael Delehanty, Paul DeLeo, James Feeley, James Freeman, Dennis Hickey, Sean Hickey, Dawne Marie, and Shawn McCarthy.”

The Police Explorers was founded in 1995 by now Secret Service Agent Vincent Crossman, who was a Customs Logan Airport Explorer. Since then, graduates from Post 99 have gone on to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Air Marshal Service, the US Marine Corps and Army, and the US Coast Guard.

Winthrop Police Post 99 will be recruiting new members beginning August 4, at 5pm, during the Winthrop Police National Night Out celebration. Individuals 14-18 years old who are interested in a career in law enforcement are encouraged to join.