General Santander National Police Academy

General Santander National Police Academy (or Escuela General Santander de la Policia Nacional in Spanish) is the main educational center for the Colombian National Police. the academy functions as a university for the formation of its force.

The institution was created by the Colombian National Police with the main function of instructing recruits to become officers, enlisted, agents, detectives and other technical and administrative services. It was formally restructured by the presidential Decree 343 of 21 February 1940 during the mandate of president Eduardo Santos in an effort to shape the institution into a more efficient entity with the support of Decree 776 of 14 April which set the dotation needed per personnel, unified and assigned more objective functions to the police force. Decree 343 also set Luis Andrés Gómez as the first director of the institution, who assigned the staff personnel for it, as also established in the Decree 77610. One of his main purposes was to achieve a status of university for the Colombian policemen.

The institution initially offered four courses with the requirement of having a previous intellectual preparation, professional attitude, moral attitude and the vocation to become a policeman. Gómez also initiates a selection process to hire highly prepared Professors from the Law Faculty of the National University of Colombia, selecting Copete Lizarralde, Arturo Valencia Zea, Adolfo Vélez Echeverri, Augusto Sastre, Alfonso Ruiz Ojeda, Moisés Spath Nerel, Guillermo Meléndez Ramírez, José Alejandro Mantilla and Guillermo Fernández. Luis Alberto Pinzón directed the Studies Prefecture along with Ricardo Rodríguez Aranza, Francisco Bruno, Miguel Lleras Pizarro, Roberto Pineda Castillo, Ernesto Antolínez, José Manuel Mosquera, Enrique Vargas and Jorge Valencia. The first class was named Simon Bolivar in honor of El Libertador. Emiliano Camargo Rodríguez was assigned as the class commander and Luis A. Cárdenas and Rey Prato as section commanders.

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