Photo courtesy of Eric Hampton.
Homewood Police Lt. Eric Hampton holds the Yellow Brick he received as part of his graduation from the FBI National Academy in March.
Lt. Eric Hampton has nearly 30 years of police experience, including 15 years in Homewood. This spring, he achieved something very few officers accomplish: traveling the Yellow Brick Road.
The Yellow Brick Road is the nickname for a six-mile obstacle course at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia. It’s the final challenge for police officers, military members and federal civilian employees from around the world who complete the FBI National Academy (NA).
Hampton, who is the HPD commander for investigations, crime scenes and internal affairs, attended the academy from January to March 2018. He described it as “the highest level of training that you can get anywhere on the earth.”
Attendees typically have to wait five years or more to be part of a class, but Hampton said former Chief Jim Roberson, also an academy graduate, and current Chief Tim Ross helped make it possible for him to attend only a year and a half after submitting his application.
“I feel very fortunate and blessed that I was able to get it done,” Hampton said. “Most people in law enforcement would love to go to the FBI NA.”
The FBI National Academy is very much like a college experience, Hampton said. He lived in a dorm with a roommate and attended classes from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. He wrote papers and had both daily and weekly physical training that was “very, very much physical.” Hampton said officers in the academy could take courses geared toward completing degrees, as well.
Hampton was part of a class of 223 men and women from 48 states and 18 countries, including Israel, Ukraine, Hong Kong and Belgium. He said discussing issues and trends in police work with people from different perspectives was a valuable part of the experience.
The topics covered while Hampton was at the National Academy included executive leadership, officer wellbeing, cyber crimes, artificial intelligence, investigation and negotiation. He said they also got to meet and talk with officers and police chiefs who had been on the scene for events that made national headlines, such as mass shootings and officer-involved shootings.
Two areas that particularly interested Hampton were interacting with people on the autism spectrum and preventing post-traumatic stress disorder in officers. Hampton said those are both areas that Homewood and all police departments can improve training and responses, as officers don’t always seek help when they need it after a difficult case.
“You’ve heard of it, you know about it. … We are real good about reacting to the incident, to the episode, to the crisis,” Hampton said of police officer culture. “We don’t do the best job in helping or protecting and serving those who serve.”
Hampton said he intends to bring what he learned in those two areas, as well as other training, back to the Homewood Police Department to teach other officers. That is part of the goal of the National Academy, he said, to better police departments across the U.S.
“They want you to affect the change when you go back,” Hampton said.
Even with 30 years under his belt, Hampton said he had a lot to learn from the National Academy that can help him grow his career in the future.
“It was absolutely a lifetime experience for me,” he said. “I put everything that I had in it.”
