Manteno swears in 2 new police officers

MANTENO — Angellynn Hurtado never thought that she’d become a police officer — that was before the Olivet Nazarene University student spent an internship with the Manteno police department.

On Monday, Hurtado was sworn in at the village board meeting as one of Manteno’s two recently-hired police officers.

“Honestly, if it weren’t for the internship that I had at Manteno police department, I would not even have been interested at all in law enforcement,” said Hurtado, who will graduate from ONU in January. “I had such a huge negative perspective on police in general beforehand, especially around 2020.

“Unfortunately, that was where a lot of turmoil was happening. But this internship that I had earlier this year very much enlightened me on what police work is actually like, and like the chief [Alan Swinford] had mentioned how I’m very passionate about the social work aspect of it.

“I really do think that the best thing I can do and use the best of my abilities in order to be able to help people, and especially as a first responder. That’s my passion, and I know I’m going to find it here.”

Hurtado, 22, is from Oak Forest, and she will be headed to the Police Training Institute in Champaign for 16 weeks of training along with Benjamin Elzinga, who was unable to attend the board meeting.

Swinford said Elzinga will be sworn in at a later date at the village hall.

Swinford noted that Hurtado studied social work and criminal justice at ONU, and said that law enforcement wasn’t on her radar until the internship.

“But I think through her contact with the policing in the weeks that she spent with us, I think she learned a lot about law enforcement, what the police really do, as opposed to what we think they really do,” he said.

“And she has a passion for helping people, which is probably why she got a social work degree. But I think she realized, if you want to be a real social worker and really help people, this is the front line of that.”

Elzinga is from Herscher and became a police officer at Kankakee Community College and moved on to be a security officer at Riverside Medical Center.

“If you’ve ever been to Riverside ER on a Friday night, that’s a hopping place,” Swinford said. “That’s some real good experience there. Ben was very impressive [in the interview.]”

Elzinga just turned 21, and Swinford said he did a great job in the testing process.

There were 45 applicants for the two police officer openings, and Swinford said Hurtado and Elzinga rose to the top.

“To get to the top of the list is no easy task,” he said. “A lot of competition, but we’re very lucky.”

FORCE NEARLY ‘UP TO SPEED’

Hurtado will become the department’s fourth woman police officer once she completes the 16-week training along with Elzinga. Both will then undergo field training within the department for 10 to 12 weeks.

“It’s a long process to get officers on patrol,” Swinford said.

Manteno is close to getting to a full police force of 26. There are 22 officers in the department now, and one will graduate this week from the PTI.

Elzinga and Hurtado will bring the force to 25 officers, and another will be going to the PTI in May.

“That will get us up to speed,” Swinford said.

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