In the beginning of November, Hyunjun Chang joined Village School. Unbeknownst to the students and teachers at the time, Hyunjun is a part of the Nassau County Police Explorers Program.

Hyunjun joined the Explorers Program to explore a possible career in law enforcement. Although his career had a rocky start, with him getting redirected from the NYDP to the Nassau County Explorers Program, he wasn’t deterred. Whether it was with the New York or Nassau County police department, he would be in the Explorers Program.

To join the program, Hyunjun went through an application process with the Police Department. This included a background check and an interview where he was asked to talk about his interests within the program.

Once through the interview process, Hyunjun started going to bi-monthly meetings. These meetings included lessons about the law and how to enforce it, physical trying like you would find in boot camp, and role playing situations. The role playing included traffic stops, search and seizure, when to shoot/not to shoot, and other important skills that he’d find himself needing if he chooses to become a police officer in the future. Along side this, Hyunjun attends many community meetings.

The biggest difference between the Explorers Program and the Police Academy, is, as Hyunjun put it, is that “the regular police academy is strict” or “straight forward.” Implying that the explorers program is more relaxed. This is because he’s not the one enforcing the law, rather he’s training himself to enforce the law if he chooses to continue his career in the department.

A few weeks ago, on February 23rd, Hyunjun attended a special training event. This event consisted of teams of police explorers being assigned, at random, to three events. Hyunjun’s team was assigned to a Burglary in progress, arrest, search and, seizure, and crime prevention. 

According to Hyunjun, the burglary in progress event went poorly, but his team rebounded and came in first in crime prevention. This is because, in his words, “we do a lot more lessons on that kind of stuff compared to the NYPD explorers, who do more of the physical training aspect.” This first place boost, along with a decent performance in the arrest, search, and seizure area propelled his unit into first place for the competition. This surprised them , seeing as they were one of the younger units attending the event.

To wrap things up, I just wanted to thank Hyunjun for taking the time out of his day to sit down and allow me to interview him. So thank you, Hyunjun, you’re amazing, and I hope you do well in nationals with your police team.