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Pictured (from left), Snyder Police Officers Maeson Rojas, Tanner Kelley and Rustin Webb take part in an active shooter exercise at Cogdell Memorial Hospital. All photos accompanying this story are taken from the Snyder Police recruitment video produced by the Hermleigh High School Audio/Video Production class. -
In the video, Snyder Police Chief Brian Haggard expressed confidence in the Snyder Police Department’s officers. He said the department is a good place for new officers to start and a great place to work. -
In the video produced by Hermleigh High School students, Officer Markkus Tipton spoke about the Field Training Officer program in the Snyder Police Department and how the program provides a good background for officers new to the job.
This past school year, the Snyder Police Department asked a group of Hermleigh High School seniors to make a video for the department.
“Sgt. (Whitney) Merket texted me, and she said ‘Hey coach, we’re wanting to do some sort of video for recruiting,’” said Hermleigh audio/video production teacher Heath Gibson. “She said, ‘I’ve seen some of the work you’ve done. I’d really love it if you guys could make us a video.’ Of course, the admin was like, ‘Absolutely.’”
Merket said she was shocked at the way the Cardinal filmmakers — including lighting director Preston Carr, director/editor/camera operator Jacklyn Clinkinbeard, camera operators Blake Hancock and Juan Morales, audio technician Alex Rodriguez and production assistant Kobe Roemisch -— took to the task.
“They did amazing,” she said. “They did more than we thought they would do with it. We were very happy. They were not shy, they wanted to get involved. They wanted to be there for everything they could be there for. It was nice to be able to work with the local school district on that. It helps the kids, and it helps us too.”
The process gave the students not only video production experience, but a glimpse inside law enforcement, Gibson said.
“We went over there and met with the chief, and we sat down with some of the other officers, and just tried to get an idea what they wanted this video to be,” he said. “We did a storyboard, sort of, and they pretty much told us, ‘Look, we’re going to give you access. There’s obviously some restrictions, but whenever you guys can shoot, come over and shoot.”
And shoot they did. Gibson said the students flew camera drones, rode along with officers and attended a live shooter training at Cogdell Memorial Hospital to get footage for the video. The students planned and shot the video, conducted interviews with officers and produced the audio and music.
“They did it all,” Gibson said. “I helped right at the end to wrap it up. I put a few clips in at the end just to wrap it up and get it to them.”
Some bad weather, and the onset of COVID-19, put a damper on the very end of the project, Gibson said.
“We started that probably about September and we got it all done right up until we left,” he said. “We still had a couple of things we wanted to put in it. The weather in February wasn’t very cooperative. It was very windy. We wanted to do some more drone stuff. I had a lot of the kids out. They were playing basketball or was the manager for basketball. So with February going full speed, it was hard to do everything we wanted. There were a few things we’d have liked to do extra, but the coronavirus kind of took care of that.”
Nonetheless, Snyder Police Lieutenant Mike Counts said the video portrays the department in a very positive light.
“It portrays us as a very well-rounded department,” he said. “We have in mind, and we have been, trying to be goal-oriented and wanting to be more community-based, helping the community. That’s kind of the goal of the video, to reach out there to the community. We want to be involved in the community and help however we can.”
The video may be viewed on Facebook pages belonging to both the Snyder Police Department and the Hermleigh ISD.