Three New Police Officers Complete Regional Academy, Join the Pasadena Department

Three new officers have joined the Pasadena Police Department after completing a six-month law enforcement basic academy in Orange County.

Officers Isaac Mendez, Loris Volery and Kevin Martinez graduated July 9 from the Orange County Sheriff’s Regional Training Academy as members of Basic Academy Class 270, according to the City of Pasadena.

Their training covered criminal law, patrol procedures, defensive tactics, firearms and community-oriented policing, the city said.

The academy meets the training standard set by the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training — requiring a minimum of 664 hours across 42 areas of instruction, from criminal law and defensive tactics to a physical-ability test recruits must pass to graduate.

The Orange County Sheriff’s academy, which operates from a Tustin campus on a former Marine Corps base, exceeds that floor with several hundred supplemental hours, running close to 1,000 hours over roughly six months. State law separately sets minimum hiring standards for every California peace officer under Government Code sections 1029 and 1031.

Police Chief Eugene Harris called completing the academy “a significant milestone and an important first step” for the three officers, according to the city.

The hires land as the Pasadena Police Department makes recruitment and retention a stated priority for the 2026 fiscal year. As newly trained officers finish, the department plans to add staffing in specialized roles such as detectives and the traffic bureau and to stand up an Active Intelligence Center, a data hub intended to give officers real-time information in the field, according to the city.

To draw experienced hires, the department offers lateral officers incentive payments of $2,500 after one month and after six months and $3,000 after completing probation.

Mendez, Volery and Martinez now move into field training, the standard next step in which new California officers work under a veteran field training officer and serve a probationary period before patrolling on their own.