PORTSMOUTH — Laura Davis and Jonathan Peters, formerly with the Portsmouth Police Department, were sworn in at Shawnee State University’s Department of Public Safety on Wednesday, Jan. 4.

“I am very happy to have these fine officers join our department,” said David Thoroughman, chief of the department at SSU. “We have grown just in the past year and I am very excited that we now have police officers with our security officers. We will soon have a new office to accommodate our growing staff.”

Davis is a 1984 graduate of Wheelersburg High School and attended Ohio University and Ohio Police Officers Training at the New Boston Police Academy. She was with the Scioto County Sheriff’s Office for seven years when she joined the Portsmouth Police Department in 1998.

Davis has also been trained Safety and Violence Prevention in the School Setting, Creating Safe Learning Environments in Schools, Violence Against Women, School Based Critical Incident Management, Effective Communication in Schools and Adolescent Emotional Issues.

She has served as a police sergeant, a school resource officer and she is a law enforcement grant writer. Davis and her husband, Ron, have a son, Ben, 15, and a daughter Katie, 9.

Peters was born in Dayton and graduated from Oscoda High School in Michigan in 1981. He attended Northern Michigan University for two years and joined the U.S. Air Force for 8 1/2 years stationed at K.I. Sawyer AFB in Michigan from 1984 to 1991 and the NAS Keflavik in Iceland from 1991 to 1992.

He has been trained as a field training officer, police mountain bike officer, radar/laser trainer, Level II crash investigator and a data master.

Peters joined the Portsmouth Police Department in 1996 after his training at the New Boston Police Academy. He received the Red Cross Hero’s award for the Notre Dame incident.

He and his wife, Nakia, have five children, two boys 17 and 25 years old, and three girls ages 17, 21 and 23.

“We will have 10 security officers and seven police officers,” Thoroughman said. “We still have one more that will be sworn in and we will have a full staff.”