Students "walk a mile" in police officer's shoes

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Macomb County high school students "walk a mile" in police officer's shoes, role-playing scenarios offering youth insight into law enforcement.

Saturday about 70 high school students "walk a mile" in police officer's shoes during the Be the Change program sponsored by Macomb Community College and Macomb County's One Macomb initiative. 

Students learned what it would be like to be a police officer through a variety of real-life simulations including a traffic stop scenario, a domestic violence situation, a suspicious circumstances call and with Macomb's state-of-the-art firearms simulator.

Students from Clintondale, Chippewa Valley, Dakota, Henry Ford II, Mt. Clemens and Utica high schools participated.

“In order to change you have to change from the inside out not the outside in so we need programs like this where young people and law important interacting and they get involved with one another and work together,” Darnell Blackburn said.

Another goal of the program was to encourage young people to pursue careers in law enforcement.