Meet one of the newest MSP Troopers to serve the U.P.

IRON MOUNTAIN — Eighty recruits became Michigan State Police Troopers last month, and twelve of them are stationed in the Upper Peninsula.

Troopers spent 21 weeks training on a number of topics, including firearms, water safety, and crime scene processing.  The newest trooper stationed at the Iron Mountain Post, Joshua Burrell, graduated from Lake Superior State.

He knew he always wanted to go into law enforcement and said his stint in the army helped him in recruit school.

“You’re standing at attention, it’s a regimented thing making your bed in the morning—kind of that part of it (is like the army), but (recruit school) was a different kind of challenge because it was the physical grind of it, but also it was also a big (mental part),” Burrell said. “It was almost like going to college, taking college courses and the physical challenge. So (being in the army) helped, but it was different.”

Training doesn’t stop once troopers graduate from recruit school, they are in a field officer training where they learn techniques from other troopers.

“It’s a whole new set of being evaluated and it’s more of an individual thing, where at school when we graduated we had 80 people and you have your peers to lean on, so here it’s kind of you know, me, being looked at as in individual so it’s a different challenge but training…you’re never done training out here.”

Burrell is from Manistique, and said he is glad to serve residents of the Upper Peninsula.