Students learn from pros at DEA academy

By Uriah A. Kiser

Published: December 1, 2008

Shooting at drug dealers, gearing up in toxic chemical suits with gas masks and knocking in doors with battering rams aren’t part of the usual day at college.

But that’s how about 20 students from Northern Virginia Community College’s Woodbridge Campus spent a recent day when they took a guided tour of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s training academy at Quantico.

The students got a firsthand look at how the DEA continues to fight the war on drugs.

“I’m really interested in the tactical side of things and learning more about what they do here,” said Steven Finske, 20, a student who serves in the National Guard. He is one of the many who attended the voluntary tour and said they are considering a career in federal law enforcement.

“I have a great interest in this field, so I am here to see what they do here, to make sure I am in the right place,” said Huma Javaid, 19, who moved back to the U.S. from Pakistan four years ago. “I was born here but grew up on Pakistani air bases because my dad was in the Pakistani Air Force. Working for the government is something I want to explore.”

After a brief orientation and quick explanation of the harmful effects of drugs on the human body, the students were taken to an indoor bunker where they assumed the role of DEA agents searching for a group of armed drug dealers. The room was made to resemble the inside of a house, where a suspected dealer would do most of his business.

As the students were paired in teams of two for the simulation, Javaid donned a bulletproof vest and was issued a handgun that fired blanks. While she and a partner searched the mock house, Jarrod Sumner, instructor and DEA special agent, told them to check behind closet doors. That’s where armed criminals often hide during raids, he said.

“Before we go around that corner there is a thing we can do called ‘slicing the pie.’ As I slowly come around the corner with my gun pointed forward, I can be out there without my body being exposed. Now they don’t have a really good angle on me making me harder to shoot,” said Sumner.

Waiting behind the closed doors and partitioned walls were mannequins armed with rubber guns. Javaid’s first reaction was to shoot and ask questions later. In her haste, she shot another mannequin holding a badge, simulating a fellow officer inside the house during the search.

From there the students lined up to use a battering ram to break down a locked door, where a drug dealer may be hiding behind. They put on chemical suits and gas masks and entered the simulated clandestine lab —  where drugs are manufactured and packaged. The masks come in handy protecting agents from harmful chemicals when they raid the labs.

Though hectic and at times overwhelming, Javaid said the experience was one she wouldn’t soon forget. “That was so cool, I had so much fun.”

Chuck Kelly, who serves as the unit chief for DEA operation, said marijuana is the most widely used drug across the country. The second is cocaine, and behind it methamphetamines — a drug he said is more readily available than ever, and one which stimulates the body so much it makes it hard for the user to ever quit.

As Kelly and his team of instructors focus their efforts on how to combat these drugs, he said the DEA is looking at various ways to recruit new members, like radio and television commercials, and the Web.

“We’ve got about 20 kids here, so we’re not reaching the masses, but as they get the one-on-one attention and training, it is something they can’t get anywhere else. Then they can take that back with them into the community and tell them about their experience,” Kelly said.

As more and more drug deals are made online, Kelly said they are looking to add more computer professionals to their team. It is a far cry from when he joined in 1991 when “they were only looking for law enforcement and military personnel,” he said.

The students will be some of the last to see the training facility before its successor, a new $20 million DEA training facility, opens near the FBI Academy at Quantico next year.

“Our students learned that terrorists are financing their campaigns of terror by dealing drugs on a grand scale,” said Dennis Staszak, a former FBI agent and NOVA professor who teaches Justice Administration at the college.

Staszak helped organize the event with the school’s criminal justice club. He has developed three national security courses that he teaches at the college and is currently working on a fourth. In addition to NOVA, Staszak also teaches at the FBI Academy.

“I really enjoy teaching …  at the academy because I am at the same time learning so much from police executives about current trends and problems in law enforcement. I then bring the information I learn from the police and educate my NOVA students in the latest law enforcement issues,” he said.

Staff writer Uriah A. Kiser can be reached at 703-878-8065.