Thread: Info on Chinese Police in Galveston County / Chinese cadets travel to US for police

Chinese cadets travel to US for police academy

By Christopher Smith Gonzalez
The Daily News
Published January 13, 2012



Yulu “Crystal” Ye, a cadet from China’s Zhejiang Police College, is taught how to shoot a shotgun by League City Det. John Griffith at Alvin Community College on Thursday morning.

LEAGUE CITY — Yuanyi “Kira” Zhao held a shotgun and looked down the shooting range at a paper target of a man pointing a gun back at her. Shooting a shotgun was a new experience for Zhao. Before coming to the United States, she had only ever shot a pistol, she said.

A League City police officer helped her aim. Behind them, League City officer Carl Stoddard called out the commands.

“On the command ‘target’ you’ll fire two rounds into center mass,” Stoddard said.

In a burst of gunfire, Zhao and her classmates fired their shotguns and AR-15s when Stoddard said the word.

Zhao is one of 16 cadets from China’s Zhejiang Police College studying criminal justice at Sam Houston State University.

“Very exciting,” Zhao said of the chance to squeeze the trigger of a shotgun.

As part of their winter break, the cadets are spending a week with the Alvin and League City Police departments and getting a firsthand look at how the justice system works.

“These guys are all the upper echelon,” Dr. Phillip Lyons said of the cadets.

Lyons is a professor in the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University. He said of the 10,000 people who apply to the Chinese police college, only 1,000 get in.

The Chinese police college is a blend of law school, a social science degree and a police academy, Lyons said. Of the students that get into the college, only 36 are admitted into the International Policing Cooperation program, and finally, only 16 get the chance to come study at Sam Houston State University.

The cadets will spend a year taking classes alongside the university’s other students. By coming to League City and Alvin, the cadets will gain experience in the community-policing model that will be useful to the cadets as policing in China evolves, Lyons said.

“We want them to see the best that American policing has to offer,” he said.

Besides the firearms training, the cadets will tour the county jail, stay with a host family and ride along with police officers on patrol Friday and Saturday.

“Police officers are usually too cool for anything, but there is almost Indian leg wrestling going on to see who gets these cadets to ride along with them,” League City police Sgt. Tamara Spencer said.

She jokingly is known as the mother hen of the program and she has coordinated the cadet’s visit to League City since the program started in 2009. She and former League City police Chief Michael Jez also got to visit China last year, Spencer said.

There are quite a few differences from the way Chinese police do things compared to the United States, she said.

For example, she said, police officers in China hardly ever carry guns

“If they do it is typically somebody high in rank,” she said.

The role of American women police officers is also something new for the cadets, she said. Women in China are typically in administration and don’t go out on the street, Spencer said.

While the cadets are in League City, she hopes they get to see a bit of what life and police work are like in the United States, she said.

The program has been successful so far and will continue, Spencer said. There has been a positive response from the community, she said.

The city council declared Jan. 11 Chinese National Police Day, said Renbin Hu, a professor from Zhejiang Police College traveling with the Chinese cadets.

“It’s a great honor for us,” Hu said. “It’s a great honor for Chinese police.”

For Zhao, police work runs in the family. Her mother and grandfather are police officers in China, she said.

Along with doing a little sightseeing — the cadets got to visit Las Vegas and Los Angeles and went on a cruise that left from Galveston during the Christmas break — she also wants to learn a few things while she is here, she said.

“I think it’s very meaningful to keep the whole world safe,” Zhao said. “I want to learn the structure here and the advanced equipment and then transport them to China — I hope.”

Chinese cadets travel to US for police academy

Info on Chinese Police in Galveston County
January 13, 2012

Steve, just wanted to give you the heads up on Chinese police officers in Galveston County, Texas. If you go to The Galveston County Daily News website today, there is a front page article with a picture of a female Chinese police officer being shown how to fire a gun by a Galveston resident with a storyline. How ironic that we are teaching Chinese police how to fire our weapons and then showing them around the county. I personally witnessed Chinese police officers at the Galveston County courthouse this past summer and now they're back for more "training". I was at the Galveston County jail yesterday and saw these same police officers receiving training there as well. A prosecutor friend of mine has also told me that the District Attorney's office has also been involved in teaching these officers about our court system. I saw about 15-20 Chinese in full dress uniform and wonder how many there are total and where they are being housed. I also wonder how many are present in this country making similar "tours" of other counties.

Thanks for all your excellent work.

G.B.(criminal defense attorney from Galveston County, TX).

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