Ritz: Berwyn police officers' commitment to training and public awareness

In the ever changing environment of the law enforcement profession, police officers face the inherent dangers of potential life threatening calls on a daily basis.

As law enforcement administrators, we have a responsibility to provide up-to-date and sustainable training to minimize the risks associated with police operations and street encounters – whether friendly or violent – in order to provide protection to our police officers and to the public.

As a department, we place a strong emphasis on the highest levels of in-house and certified training in order to prepare our officers, and to provide awareness to our community.

Training takes time, resources and funding, which benefits our department and those we serve in many ways over the long run. As part of our various public training initiatives, the Berwyn Police Department, the city of Berwyn, J. Sterling Morton High School District 201, and Berwyn School Districts 98 and 100 worked together to fund a community-wide Prevention through Education Program titled: “Bullying Prevention” that was presented in October by Tina Meier through the Megan Meier Foundation.

The riveting presentation by Tina Meier told the story of her 13-year -old daughter, Megan Meier, who took her own life because of a friendship that began with a boy on the social media site MySpace. After an argument with the boy, others joined in on the site and began sending hurtful and offensive messages to Megan over the Internet. The last words said to Megan from Josh were, “The world would be a better place without you."

Tragically, after Megan took her life, it was learned that the boy never existed. H was a fictitious creation of an adult neighbor of the Meier’s, and the neighbor’s 13-year-old daughter who was a former friend of Megan.

This disheartening story is one of so many tragic occurrences that take place on social media sites and our streets everyday throughout the world. Tina Meier has told her story all over the country at many school and public venues, and also on many of the major television networks.

Through training and public awareness programs such as this, it is vital that we keep up to date with the criminal and social trends taking place in our communities. In continuing to work together in a collaborative effort with the city of Berwyn and our school districts, we look forward to bringing more of these valuable training programs to you, which are designed to promote community awareness and prevention.

Jim Ritz is chief of the Berwyn Police Department