Elgin police lieutenant teaching police tactics in Kosovo

Lt. Jeff Adam has been teaching aspiring officers investigations skills for years, but this week he’ll have a new class of students.

Adam is teaching members of local, state and national police forces in Kosovo a host of techniques he has honed in Elgin’s Police Department for the last 19 years. The opportunity comes from Northwestern University, where Adam has taught for the last six years, with the help of a state department grant.

Elgin Police Chief Jeff Swoboda said Adam is an expert in investigations after dealing with large-scale projects in his time in the gang and drug units.

“It really speaks to the level of talent that we have within the Elgin Police Department that one of our members would be asked to go to Kosovo and help train their law enforcement,” Swoboda said.

Officers and other law enforcement experts have regularly traveled to Kosovo in recent years to assist in training the police force in the fledgling democracy. Kosovo was only formally recognized as an independent country in 2008.

Adam’s work at Northwestern University in the School for Police Staff and Command brought him face-to-face with this overseas opportunity. He will be teaching investigative techniques, as well as about the supervision of specialized units — like the gang and drug units he has overseen in Elgin.

Swoboda said it is the first time Adam ever took his teaching skills so far away.

Though Adam left last week, his teaching commitments began Monday, Feb. 27, for the weeklong program. He’ll be back to his position as a supervisor of the Neighborhood Enforcement Team in Elgin the second week in March.

Adam will be able to teach in English while others do simultaneous interpretation for the police officers in attendance into their languages of Albanian and Serbian.

Swoboda said a handful of other Elgin lieutenants teach at various schools in the region. But he pointed to Adam’s Kosovo trip as worthy of particular note.

“I’m proud as the chief of police and I think the citizens of Elgin should be too,” Swoboda said.