By Sam Borsato - @BorsatoSam on Twitter

Outstanding efforts earn Lethbridge police officers prestigious honours

Mar 29, 2017 | 7:24 PM

LETHBRIDGE – The dedicated work of five Lethbridge Police Service officers has not gone unnoticed.

Chief Rob Davis recognized Cst. Daryl Pike and Cst. Saska Vanhala for their help to reach positive outcomes in two separate cases, at Monday’s (Mar. 29) police commission meeting.

Earlier this month, a young boy wandered away from his mother with their family dog in the river valley dog park along Scenic Drive. Multiple officers were called to the scene to help look for the child. Cst. Pike knew the river was nearby, and began searching along the north and west shores near the Lethbridge Country Club. He was able to find the boy, wrapped him in a winter coat and reunited him with his very relieved mother.

Cst. Vanhala was assigned to a historic missing persons case that was finally solved in January. Anna and Kym Hakze hadn’t been seen by their family since the mid 1980s. But the two are now 67 and 53, living under new names somewhere in the United States.

It was an old ad for a book that Anna had written, saved by a woman with the same name in Vancouver, that turned out to be the crucial link in the investigation.

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“The officer (Cst. Vanhala) did some open-source checking on the book, which also led to a recent news story that just happened to be online with that, and a recent photo in an area where they believed the author was living,” Staff Sgt. Scott Woods explained previously.

Chief Davis thanked both Cst. Pike and Cst. Vanhala for their efforts, handing over certificates to the applause of their family, friends and colleagues.

Three Lethbridge officers have also been honoured with the Cpl. Cumming’s Watch award. It’s a collaborative effort between Alberta RCMP, MADD Canada and Alberta Transportation to recognize officers who demonstrate their dedication to charging impaired drivers.

The program is named in honour of Cpl. Graeme Cumming, who was a member of the Lethbridge RCMP. He was killed by an impaired driver while responding to a traffic incident on Highway 3 near Lethbridge on August 12, 1998.

MJ Appleby, a nursing student at the University of Lethbridge, made a moving speech at Monday’s meeting before helping hand out the awards to Cst. Yoan Bernatchez, Cst. Marco Pagliericci and Cst. Dillon Rochon. 

She explained that she was severely injured in a collision with an impaired driver on the Yellowhead highway near Vegreville, Alberta in June 2015, and that her father — who is now retired from the RCMP — worked with Cpl. Cumming back in 1996.

“I think that police officers get so much hate and negative feedback all the time, especially around impaired drivers. It can have a big effect on your life, but ultimately you make the choice and to me it’s not an accident. You made that choice. You’ve put yourself and others at risk,” she noted in an interview.

“So, to really commemorate the police officers and just make them feel good about what they’re doing, I think that’s really important. I’m just happy I can be here to do it.”

Lethbridge’s three officers were among 30 others from across Alberta that received the 2016 Cpl. Graeme Cumming’s Watch award. Twenty-two officers were given silver challenge coins for charging between 15 and 24 impaired drivers over the past calendar year, while eleven were given gold challenge coins for charging more than 25.

Cst. Bernatchez particularly stood apart from the group. He managed to charge a total of 65 impaired drivers, which Chief Davis says is the highest amount from across the entire province.

When asked how he did it, Bernatchez explained that it’s a lot of hard work on the part of multiple officers, diligence in detecting the signs as well as tips from the public.

“That’s the grim truth of having impaired drivers on the road is those fatalities and collisions where innocents are hurt. We want to prevent that, and that’s the goal to get these people off the road,” he noted after hearing Appleby’s story.

Cst. Rochon was close behind, coming in second place across Alberta, taking 51 impaired drivers off the road. Cst. Pagliericci earned a silver coin with 18 total charges.

The awards were officially presented on March 2 in Edmonton by Insp. Steve Daley, acting officer in charge of Alberta RCMP traffic services, Andrew Murie, CEO of MADD Canada and Wendy Dole, executive director of the office of traffic safety.
 

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