MHPS hires four new officers, seeks one more

By Jeremy Appel on December 22, 2018.

Medicine Hat News

Four new officers hired by the Medicine Hat Police Service will fill vacancies left earlier this year, although the force is still down one officer, according to Insp. Brent Secondiak.

MHPS is authorized to employ 113 officers. With the new hires, they’re at 112.

“It was all through attrition,” Secondiak said, adding there were four retirements and one officer who moved to another detachment.

“We thought the gap was too significant to wait for our next cadet class (in 2020).”

MHPS anticipates at least three retirements in the new year, with more to come in 2020, which will hopefully be filled in time for the next cadet class.

Two of the new cops come from the Calgary Police Service, one is from the Lethbridge Police Service and the other worked for various RCMP detachments — most recently in Maple Creek — but Secondiak said they all have ties to the Hat.

“That’s something we really look for,” he said. “We find that when we hire from elsewhere, they’re more likely to leave to another police agency, because most people want to be around family.”

Two of the new officers grew up and went to high school in the Hat, while the others have family here, Secondiak said.

The new hires will ensure “that we’re still able to provide effective policing to the city,” he added.

All four are constables with the patrol unit, which Secondiak says services the majority of service calls.

“If those units are depleted, then it affects our response time, it affects our ability to investigate calls, so it’s important to keep patrols up as much as we can,” he said, adding that the new constables “will put us in a good position to be effective throughout 2019.”

13
-12