Covington Police Explorers Improve on Last Year’s Results

The 2015 Covington Police Explorers were knocking on the door of greatness during last year’s Boy Scouts of America Winterfest Exploring competition. The 2016 group kicked the door down.

A national competition designed to showcase their law enforcement skills, the Explorers of Post 222 competed in eight different categories. They finished first in one competition, sixth in another, and placed in the top-five in four of the eight divisions entered. Those statistics are even more impressive considering the Explorers competed against 77 different law enforcement teams from 11 states across the southeast.

“To come home with four top-five finishes including a win is just amazing,” said Criminal Intelligence Officer and Explorer Advisor Allan Seebaran. “We were pleased with our results last year, but we promised ourselves we were going to train even harder, come back in 2016 and improve our results dramatically. That is exactly what we did.”

Explorers Douglas Phillips, Brianna Johnson, Rachal Phillips, and Allison Rogers were the group that claimed the top spot in the ‘Officer Down’ competition. The group of four were presented with a scenario where an officer responded to a domestic disturbance call where they observed an officer down. They were graded on items like officer safety, scene management, verbal commands, and assisting the down officer.

The team also competed in ‘Felony Traffic Stop’, finishing fifth, ‘Robbery in Progress’ and ‘Drug Identification’ where they placed fourth in each, and ‘Team Display’ where they finished third. The team recorded a sixth-place finish in the ‘Warrant Service’ portion of the event.

“This is particularly rewarding for our Explorers because they saw what dedication and hard work can do,” Seebaran said. “We went head-to-head with the best teams in the southeast and beat most of them. I couldn’t be more proud of this group and to say I am excited about our future is an understatement.”

Seventeen of the police department’s 24 Explorers made the trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee where the event drew 3,000 attendees and was held from February 12 – 14, 2016.

Participating in the execution of road races, events such Independence in the Park, American Cancer Society’s Relay 4 Life, Miracle League and city-affiliated Christmas events, the Explorer Program is involved in the community year round and is open to students ages 14 to 20. Anyone interested in participating can call Officer Allan Seebaran at 770-385-2144.