INDIANAPOLIS — Students, IMPD officers, and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives gathered at The Edison School of the Arts on Monday to celebrate the 6th graders' commitment to building a safer community.
“We’re celebrating 80 plus kids graduating from the great program, the gang resistance and education training program,” explained IMPD Major Corey Mims. “These students have spent the last 13 weeks working on curriculum to learning resiliency, making the right choices, being better citizens both in their community and also in their schools as well.”
The program helps kids prepare for the tough decisions that could come down the road.
“Decision-making is critical,” Mims said. “Anger management and conflict resolution. We see time and time again in our city where conflict is a source of some violence that we come across.”
It builds a relationship between police and the next generation they hope to serve.
“Unfortunately for some kids, this may be the only time they hear positive or see positive interaction with law enforcement,” said ATF Special Agent John Nokes. “Again, it's worth our time and effort to come out and do this.”
Nokes hopes the program can grow across the region in the years to come.
“I want to see it keep growing. As you heard today, we're doing this maybe twice this year in Indianapolis,” Nokes said. “That's not enough, we want to do it more but that's tied to funding.”
