SWANSEA'S DARE CLASS CONTINUES

SWANSEA -- After the death of Swansea's volunteer Drug Abuse
Resistance Education Officer Lt. Robert M. Cabral on Nov. 5, it
would have been understandable to see the DARE program be
discontinued for the rest of the school year.

But Cabral's fellow officers knew that the lieutenant would have
wanted to continue the program for the good of the students, and
officers from Somerset and Swansea have made that a reality.

"After the tragic loss of Lt. Cabral, Somerset Police Chief Joseph
Ferreira called us asking what his department could do to help keep
our DARE program going," said Swansea Police Chief George Arruda.
"Because our own School Resource Officer Shane Mello was not yet
DARE-certified, Chief Ferreira said he had two officers that were
willing to help keep our (DARE) program going."

Ferreira gave credit to both Lt. Brian Leonard and Sgt. Jeffrey Cote
for initially approaching him with the idea of the officers
volunteering their services for Swansea's DARE program.

Due to the budget cuts that hit the town of Swansea in 2002, Cabral
had been teaching the DARE classes on a volunteer basis for the last
three years and Leonard, Cote and Mello will continue that tradition.

On Friday morning at 9:45 a.m. at Case Jr. High School, Mello and
Leonard made their way into the first DARE class held in Swansea
since Cabral's death.

"It's extremely important to be involved with the youth," said
Ferreira. "Swansea had a very successful program and Lt. Cabral did
an awesome job with it."

Ferreira said that either Leonard or Cote will assist in teaching
the classes with Mello until he becomes DARE-certified.

Arruda said that Mello had called out to DARE to receive a temporary
certification as a DARE officer due to the circumstances behind
Cabral's death, but because of the strict qualifications behind the
international program, DARE officials refused to grant the request.

"That's why DARE has the reputation it does," said DARE spokesman
Scott Gilliam. "This is a very intense program recognized as one of
the toughest courses a police officer can take. We're basically
taking a police officer and making them into a teacher."

Gilliam said Mello will have to go through a grueling two-week, 80-
to 100-hour training session geared toward child development,
classroom management and communication skills.

"The importance of the DARE program is in the students seeing police
officers in a different light than they might normally," said Mello
minutes before his first DARE class. "You hope that these kids come
away with the confidence and willpower to make their own decisions in life."

Case Jr. High Principal Robert Monteiro said the volunteer actions
of the three officers will help fill many voids for the students.

"Starting the DARE program up again is very important emotionally,
because many of these students were looking forward to their DARE
class with Lt. Cabral," said Monteiro. "This will help to close the
gap, something Lt. Cabral would have wanted."

In 2005, 36 million children around the world -- 26 million in the
United States alone -- benefited from the DARE program. It is
currently in 80 percent of the nation's school districts.

"The DARE program is so important in order to empower these students
and give them the ability to keep safe beyond just drug and alcohol
abuse," said Arruda. "We all feel a sense of responsibility to
mentor the youth of Swansea like Lt. Cabral did. It is through
his efforts that we feel responsible to move this program along."