By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles on Twitter

Retired LPS officer recounts unusual stories in new book

Apr 5, 2018 | 1:47 PM

LETHBRIDGE – When Randy Ward retired from the Lethbridge Police Service in 2013, he decided that he wanted to give people a glimpse of his 27-year career and offer some insight into what other police officers still go through.

After five years of considering it, Ward started writing several months ago and has now released a collection of 43 short stories titled, ‘You Can’t Make This Sh#t Up: Policing Through Stories.’

“When I was policing all the time, I always loved taking [people for] ride-alongs… because it gives them that little bit, that little piece of policing, to see and let them understand what a policeman’s life is like,” Ward said. “So, my motivation for the book is basically that, to show you that there is tragedy in policing, there is unpredictability, there is humour – lots of humour at times, and you have to have that in order to survive.”

Ward’s interest in policing was ignited when his car started on fire one night. After running to find a fire extinguisher, he returned to find fire fighters putting out the blaze and was offered a ride home by a young police officer at the scene.

“On the way home, he gets a break-and-enter call,” explained Ward. “So, he says, ‘You want to come with?’ and I go, ‘Yeah!’ So, I end up going with him to this break-and-enter, and then we went to another call on the way back, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

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As for the title, he said it comes directly from the officers on the front-lines, who use the phrase on a daily basis.

“Cops all over the world say this. Guys would come up to me when I was the acting sergeant or when I was just in patrols, and they would say, ‘You can’t make this stuff up.’” Ward said, censoring himself for the assembled media. “This is real stuff, but nobody would believe it, you just can’t make it up. Those are the type of things that go on all the time with policing.”

Ward also provided a hint of what you can expect from his book, which is available on Amazon.ca and at Lethbridge Tactical Supply.

“We had a bank robber in town that was robbing several banks. We caught him out on the roadway on Highway 23, and when he gets out of the van he runs at me with two knives, and I came as close as I ever wanted to come to shooting anybody,” he recounted. “My partner, who was the dog guy at the time, didn’t realize that the guy had knives at the time, and he let his dog loose. So, the dog came after the bank robber, jumped at him and missed, and at that point he lost his will to die.”

He said the man cooperated from that point on, chuckling as he added that the man’s wife then exited the vehicle and also took a run at him.

Once Ward started writing stories like that down, he said more memories quickly came flooding back, which he would write up as well. He laughed again as he noted that the person helping him publish the book finally asked him to stop sending stories in.

To that end, he said this book will be volume one and that you can expect ‘More Sh#t You Can’t Make Up: Policing Through Stories’ in the future.

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