Police cadet graduation – officers relate commitment, sincerity – and frustration

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Graduate, Brendan Davis, will be with Lethbridge police in the Community Peace Officer Program, which he described as fairly new.

“They want us to be downtown, walking, being with the community, helping out and all the other duties of a police officers, but to a lesser degree. I know the Chief (Rob Davis) wants to decrease the number of calls that regular members are taking for minor things in the downtown area, where they’re using up a lot of resources, and for us to come in and work with them and try to take the heat off them a bit.”

As for what inspired Davis to entre the program? “I always wanted to give back to my community in one way or another and being in this program gives me the best opportunity to give back to my community.”

Police Cadet Charles Hine will also be with the Lethbridge Police Service.

“The training was unique, it was difficult – we had firearms training, we had control tactics, we had a lot of scenarios where we would actually go into mock situations and work with actors and we would have actual police officers assessing us on our behaviours and how we performed. It was a very heavy course, very difficult but, I’m happy we all made it through.

Hine noted that each cadet was offered a position in the training but, they had to perform well to be offered a job at the end.

As for the reason behind Hine’s career choice?

“I was looking for a career that was going to be a little difficult and challenging – I didn’t want a job that I would be going to and doing the same thing every day. In my previous employment I worked with youth, helping youth, worked with mental health and worked with corrections, so I’ve kind of got a whole bunch of experience in that kind of field, so this was the last step I saw in how I can continue to help people and try to make a difference in the community.”

Shawn Davis, the Regimental Sergeant Major for the Lethbridge Police Service, noted the mix of police agencies with graduating recruits is not unusual.

“It’s common for us to try to get other agencies together – we’re smaller agencies so it’s beneficial in a number of ways but, it’s also nice to have officers from different agencies come together, because those are friendships and partnerships that you’re going to keep for the rest of your career, so it’s amazing to have that availability.”

Davis notes those partnerships evolve to foster cross agency collaborations, so that when an officer is involved in a specific case that may impact other police agencies, it’s likely there is someone at that other agency they may know and can reach out to in the course of their own investigation and vice-versa.

“We have two different programs going on, the CPO or Community Peace Officer program and the Police officer Program. Their training is exactly the same. It’s a new program implemented this year with (LPS) Chief (Rob) Davis and it’s just another way to keep our community safe”

The new Community Peace officer position was basically formed as one extra tool to combat a burgeoning opioid problem and the crime that comes with it. Davis says the police are trying to do the best they can for it but, the problem was not originally budgeted into the number of police officers for Lethbridge.

Davis sees policing as a great and rewarding career but, also about policing frustrations.

“I wouldn’t change it for the world – I’m very happy with the career that I’ve had. There are days when we say there is no money worth it – days when someone’s got a gun or something and the bad things that police officers do see – we do get a bad rap sometimes in the media and I just wish that people would consider that there’s a reason for a small clip in a video – something was happen to pull a camera out and a lot of videos get edited and you’re only seeing a small portion of it. Do not jump to conclusions, try to wait for the investigation – try to wait for the story to get out before you jump to conclusions and make bad assumptions about that police officer involved in that video or certainly generalizing police officers by one video you might have seen.”

Davis continued, “There are 172 police officers in Lethbridge, there are thousands over the province of Alberta and hundreds of thousands across north America and to see one video of one officer doing something, may or may not be correct in that small snippet, certainly doesn’t speak to the character of every police officer and I just wish everyone would take every officer and give them that respect they deserve until we’ve been proven to do something wrong.”

“When Police Commission Chair, Peter Deys, spoke today about a community survey that came back showing 93-per cent of the people surveyed felt they were dealt with respect by our police service. That’s a huge number, 93-per cent is incredible and there are times that our job is incredibly difficult – some of the things we have to see, some of the things that we have to deal with aren’t always fun, so I wish people would just consider, if an officer comes to talk to you, consider where he or she may have been just prior to speaking with you and they may have just left a sad or horrific situation to come see you.”

Davis isn’t asking for an open leash but is simply asking the public to consider what each officer may have had to go through that shift, that day or that week.

“We’re one cog in the justice wheel, that’s how I explain it to recruits or cadets when I speak to young officers – we’re just one cog in the wheel. We go out there and do one file at a time, work one shift at a time and do the best you can do that one shift, do the best you can do on that one file and what decisions the court makes, that’s out of our control and let the chips fall where they may.”

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