Growing up in Port Chester, N.Y., Sebastian Obando played baseball and football from his childhood through graduating from high school in the city, located just over the state line past Greenwich.
Two of the three men pictured here are new officers in the New Canaan Police Department. The third attended St. A’s with Steve Benko and is now a wine expert and parking commissioner. Officers Matthew Blank (L) and Sebastian Obando (R) started at NCPD on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. Rick Franco was walking past on South Avenue when we took this photo outside NCPD headquarters. Credit: Michael Dinan
The most trusted and most motivational adult figures during those formative years were sports coaches, according to Obando.
And many among them were cops, he recalled.
“How they carried themselves was professional and it kind of helped us all do the right thing, both on the field and off the field,” Obando, 23, said Monday from the training room at the New Canaan Police Department, days after graduating from the Connecticut Police Academy in Meriden as part of its 353rd class. “And that is something about being a police officer is you always have to do the right thing, while on duty and off duty.”
Together with fellow Officer Matthew Blank, 28, Obando is the newest member of NCPD. Sworn in to NCPD in March, the pair graduated from the Academy on Thursday and reported to headquarters here in town on Friday. They’ll get into the field with a training officer this week, and within two months will be assigned their own cruisers to work the job, according to Sgt. Aaron LaTourette.
NCPD Officers Matthew Blank and Sebastian Obando graduated Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016 from the CT State Police Academy. Credit: Michael Dinan
A New York Giants football fan whose wife is a “rabid New York Mets fan” and has two dogs at home—Coalhouse and Lola, 3- and 4-year-old mixed-breed rescues—Blank is a Stamford High School graduate who previously had worked at Saxe Middle School as an assistant director/stage manager. He has studied at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts in Manhattan and then at Cochise College in Sierra Vista, Ariz., where he studied operational intelligence, and has served for three-plus years as an intelligence analyst for the Connecticut National Guard.
Police work is something Blank said he has thought about for a long time.
“My parents always believed in giving back and doing a noble lien of work and try to help other people’s lives through your own,” he said. “So I have always been attracted to the concept of being law enforcement.”
Having worked in the district and gotten to know some of New Canaan’s families through Saxe is something that “has a lot of meaning to me,” Blank said.
“I get to impact their lives directly now as a police officer in this town. And that’s important to me, knowing who the families are and know the parents and kids. “
Obando after graduating from Port Chester High School earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology from Penn State University. Prior to attending the Academy, he had been employed with SoulCycle in Rye Brook and has been involved as a mentor with both Big Brothers, Big Sisters and with the Youth Service Bureau for Center County in State College, Penn.
The San Francisco 49ers fan and fluent Spanish speaker said he doesn’t have a dog now but wants one, and that he was attracted to NCPD because he likes New Canaan and what the department offers.
“For a small department it offers everything from K-9, detective, investigation unit, SRT, school resource officers, so I really like that,” Obando said. “The town is very nice.”
Both officers said they were both nervous and excited about getting started, and that everyone they’ve met in the NCPD family has been helpful and supportive.
“I feel fairly prepared from the six months we spent at the academy with the book knowledge and now I’m excited to apply it,” Blank said.