Cumberland Police Chief Suzanne Crooke-Woodland holds the yellow brick she earned after completing a physically demanding 6-mile course at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
Mitchell Kirk | Daily Reporter
CUMBERLAND – Suzanne Crooke-Woodland completed her journey down the Yellow Brick Road.
There was no skipping, singing or dancing down this Yellow Brick Road, however. Quite the opposite. Instead, it required traversing 6 miles of hilly, wooded trails; climbing over walls; splashing through creeks; and scaling up and down ropes.
There was no wizard at the end of it, either, but rather an immense sense of accomplishment for the chief of the Cumberland Metropolitan Police department.
It was just one part of the 10 weeks Woodland completed last month at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The academic and physical training she received there, she said, will enhance her ability to lead Cumberland’s police force.
Woodland had long been wanting to go through the FBI’s training program for current law enforcement officers, which draws attendees from all over the country and world.
“That’s been something that I personally wanted to accomplish,” she said.
Trainees have to be a certain rank and receive a recommendation from their respective departments. Woodland submitted her application in 2020 and considered herself lucky to only wait two years, adding some wait over a decade.
She joined a class of 235 hailing from law enforcement agencies across the globe, many of whom she continues to keep in touch with.
Trainees earn 17 undergraduate college credit hours through the University of Virginia and have options for master’s courses.
Monday through Friday started at 7:30 a.m. in a classroom.
“It was like being back in school,” Woodland said.
Her instructors came from a variety of backgrounds, including some still serving as FBI agents and others retired from law enforcement agencies from around the country.
Days ended at 4:30 p.m. Some were filled with various classes, while others included physical conditioning.
The academy’s “Yellow Brick Road” is named after the yellow-painted bricks placed to guide runners through the course, which was originally developed by the U.S. Marine Corps. Those who complete it receive a yellow brick to commemorate the accomplishment.
“I completed that sucker and I got that yellow brick and brought it home,” Woodland said.
Trainees receive three square meals a day and live in dormitories. Woodland’s roommate was a female police officer from the country of Georgia. She also had several suite-mates.
“It was basically being back in college,” she said.
Complete with plenty of homework assignments, Woodland continued.
“There were papers you had to write, but the conversations of the different topics – especially with what people are dealing with now – that was huge,” she said. “And getting all those different viewpoints from all those different agencies, even the ones that were other countries that were having the same problems, just a different environment.”
She particularly appreciated a course on leading at-risk employees.
“When you’ve got somebody that’s showing some disciplinary issues, it gets you thinking about the underlying issues that they may be dealing with, that may have been caused from something on the job, like going to a traumatic event, and suppressing that comes out in other ways, and how to deal with that moving forward,” she said.
Many of her fellow classmates shared their own experiences on that subject, as did she, having lost her partner to suicide in 2015.
Her class on communications for law enforcement leaders delved into public speaking and communicating with government officials, as well as conducting formal and informal conversations.
“It was really good things that we don’t get to practice, or you forget that’s something you need to work on,” Woodland said.
A class on leading essentials for a law enforcement leader addressed various events agencies respond to. That was enhanced, she said, by one of her classmates having served as the lead law enforcement officer for the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School.
The class she took on behavioral science was led by one of the FBI’s first profilers. Woodland recalled how he had a full-size figurine of Hannibal Lecter in his classroom, complete with the orange jumpsuit and mask like the ones Anthony Hopkins wore in “The Silence of the Lambs” while portraying the brilliant forensic psychiatrist but also cannibalistic serial killer.
“That was pretty cool to have him,” Woodland said of the instructor. “I would say he’s a little out there.”
She joined her class on weekend day trips to New York City and Philadelphia, where they listened to law enforcement speakers; and Washington, D.C., where they toured the Pentagon.
The town of Cumberland didn’t need to allocate any funds for Woodland’s training at the academy. She’s grateful for town officials allowing her to attend.
“You’ve just got to get there, and everything is included,” Woodland said. “They have other things that you end up having to pay out of pocket for, but it’s worth the experience.”
While she was the first member of the Cumberland Metropolitan Police Department to attend the FBI National Academy, she hopes she’s not the last.
“I hope there are many more to follow,” she said. “It was a great opportunity.”
