Drumheller’s RCMP will be undergoing a changing of the guard this summer, as on schedule, three members will be leaving the valley and possibly three more moving in.
Members Kirk Smith, Mark Logan, and Chris Nelson, with a total of 13 years experience collectively, will be replaced in the coming months in accordance to normal RCMP protocol, says Drumheller RCMP Staff Sergeant Arthur Hopkins.
A member out of Manitoba with three years experience will replace Nelson, the second incoming member is a cadet, who’s been in town for four months.
The third member has yet to be identified.
Although they could bring experience, S.Sgt. Hopkins speculates there will be a new cadet with no experience outside of training.
Despite possibly losing 10 years experience in his leaving staff, Hopkins says the routine process happens across the prairies.
“(Switching posts often) gives you a different experience as an officer,” explains Hopkins.
“It makes them more well rounded as to how to handle different situations.”
Drumheller would be classified as a municipal policing jurisdiction, with police action focused on things such as bar problems, stores and business related crime like theft.
In a rural area like Beiseker, police work is more agriculturally based. Thefts of grain, cattle, break and enter to farmhouses, movement of drugs through the area are examples of what rural officers may encounter.
The urban and rural jurisdictions call for totally different skills and processes, and when police are exposed to these it allows them to improve their abilities and become more rounded.
“They learn how to talk to different people, to handle different situations,” Hopkins says.