Schuylkill Valley Community Library hosted Meet a State Trooper on July 15.
“I’m just a normal kind of guy. The only difference between me and your dad is that I get to wear this fancy suit,” said Trooper Dave Boehm.
Boehm’s presentation was part of the ongoing summer theme at the library, “Every Hero Has a Story”, which included both super heroes and community heroes like Boehm.
Boehm paid special attention during his program to educate the children, ranging from pre-school through middle school, on the proper way to deal with a stranger who may approach them. Everyone present was silent as they listened to Boehm’s words of advice and his caution in regard to recent child luring attempts in Berks County. Children were warned never to get close enough for a stranger to touch them, and Boehm encouraged them to do things to strangers that they are normally forbidden to do to people they know. “Kick them, punch them, spit on them, throw a rock at them… You can scream. You can yell, ‘I don’t know you!'”
When Boehm opened his talk to questions from the young audience, the children asked questions ranging from “do you have kids?” to “is it pretty heavy with all those things on your belt?” After everyone’s curiosity was satisfied, Boehm invited the crowd to explore his official vehicle, parked in the lot behind the library. Children had the opportunity to sit in the front and back seats, survey the computer equipment and mounted guns, as well as to have a close up encounter with the sirens and lights. Boehm demonstrated some of the equipment that is standard for a trooper to have available, including a police anti-riot shield and battering ram, and invited everyone interested to handle them as well.
Boehm handed out gold stickers for the children to wear that stated that they were Junior Troopers of the Pennsylvania State Police and handed out ink pads and paper for everyone to experiment with fingerprinting.
A Pennsylvania State Trooper with 23 years of seniority, Boehm serves as the Community Service and Public Information Officer out of the Reading barracks and in those roles conducts educational presentations, sends news releases and conducts interviews with the media. Boehm is also one of the Reading troopers who is certified as a Child Passenger Safety Seat technician, a program that is available to help anyone in the community to accurately and safely install children’s car seats into their personal vehicles.
Also the Director of Camp Cadet, an annual summer program for children ranging from 12 to 15, Boehm coordinates a volunteer staff of troopers, military personnel, sheriffs, and police in Berks, Lebanon, and Schuylkill counties. The week-long event at Camp Manatawny in Douglassville provides a program similar to the police academy for the youth in attendance. Boehm described how attendees can return for a second year as junior counselors and that there are families who have had multiple generations in the program, in operation since 1985. As a non-profit organization, Camp Cadet relies on corporate and private donations.
Despite the multiple ways that he supports the people of Berks County and beyond, Boehm seemed to treat his responsibilities as common place. As he relayed to his young audience, “As police officers, we do our job.”
For more information about programs available through the Pennsylvania State Police, Reading, contact Trooper Boehm at 610-378-4036.
For more information about upcoming programs at the Schuylkill Valley Community Library, located at 1310 Washington Street in Leesport, call 610-926-1555 or visit www.berks.lib.pa.us/ssv.
