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At last night’s (Thursday, September 25) Sheriff’s Citizen Academy Class at District 6 Headquarters off Jog Road in Boynton Beach, we left the classroom behind, formed an auto caravan behind Captain Martin Bechtel and drove up to Sheriff’s Headquarters off Gun Club Road in West Palm Beach.

Our first lesson occurred in the Communications Department, a large area where there are cubicles with civilian employees manning four computer screen consoles. A young lady and her male supervisor were our guides through this important area where all 911 calls come in throughout the county and action dispatches are made. Each employee in the console area handles a specific bit of geography in the county. Each computer screen shows important information such as location of an accident, location of sheriff’s deputy patrol cars, records of licensed drivers, and much more. These operators work long hours in a very stressful occupation.

Leaving one stressful occupation for another, our group of nineteen Academy classmates followed Capt. Bechtel next door to the second lesson of the evening: The County Jail. Here we were given a tour by a prison guard Sheriff’s Deputy and his Sergeant. At each door we had to go through our guides had to shout the count of how many were in our group to the deputy guard in charge so the doors could be unlocked. By this time two more of our classmates joined us.

We were shown the “intake area” where prisoners are first brought in, frisked and processed. One such event happened before our eyes, as a hapless male went through the process. We walked by the first floor cells the prisoners occupy temporarily when they are first arrested before they are transferred to the upper floors. This jail holds about 1,500 prisoners. We were then whisked upstairs in two large elevators to the sixth floor to see where the prisoners live, eat and take their exercise.

After a fifteen minute break at the open air area on the 12 floor of the building which is the staff break area that offers a splendid view of the surrounding area, and the planes going in and out of PBI, we returned to the exit lobby for a demonstration of the weapons used to maintain order, demonstrated by our host deputies. One was a paintball type of gun, the other a Tommy-gun looking weapon that holds six heavy projectiles that can be shot at an unruly prisoner.

“If someone gets hit in the chest with one of these heavy projectiles,” said the ex-Marine deputy who was demonstrating the gun, “it’s like getting hit with a cinder block.” Their weapon of choice is the stun gun which they carry as a sidearm. They said the other two weapons rarely have to be used.

We ended our three hour visit, leaving this sad, drab building packed with unhappy people. An interesting place to visit once—and never have to see it again.