A former Apopka resident was sworn in as the city’s newest police officer on Friday, February 17, at the Apopka Police Department on East Sixth Street, Apopka.
Apopka Police Chief Michael McKinley swore in Marcus Gilzen, 23, before his family and police staff. Gilzen, a graduate of Wekiva High School and a former Lake Mary police officer, currently lives in Winter Garden.
Gilzen is the first of five new Apopka officers to be hired through a $625,000 federal Community Oriented Police Services (COPS) Hiring Program grant. This fund will help the city to ease heavy demands on the police department in keeping up with a growing community of over 46,000 residents and businesses spread across 33 square miles of northwest Orange County.
The grant requires a match from Apopka for $339,800, according to city officials.
Gilzen will be introduced to the City Council at a later meeting, McKinley said.
After today’s ceremony, Gilzen will go through a three-to-four month police academy training so he can be up to speed on the city’s policies, practices and procedures. Following that, Gilzen will ride with different training officers over a course of several months before riding out on his own.
The mayor usually swears in new officers, but Mayor Joe Kilsheimer was unavailable because he had to go out of town. Nevertheless, the police department decided not to hold off on Gilzen’s oath-taking so he can start his job training right away.
Watch the posted video of the swearing-in ceremony.
More of this story will appear in the Friday, February 24 issue of The Apopka Chief.
