Smiths Falls Police kick off milestone anniversary celebrations Feb. 8

Posted Jan 26, 2012 By Stacey Roy

EMC News - In 1887 a brutal beating resulted in the appointment of Jasper Vrooman as police chief for the town complete with an office in the town hall. This year it is hoped the community's 25 uniformed staff will move out of the town hall and into their own facility, showing yet another sign of the progress the last 125 years has seen in local law enforcement.

Plans to celebrate this extraordinary achievement in community policing are under way with the first event taking place Wednesday, Feb. 8, 3 p.m. at the Community Centre (new arena). On this date there will be a brief celebration with Mayor Dennis Staples, other dignitaries and the public to acknowledge the many decades of service provided by the Smiths Falls Police Service.

"We want everybody to celebrate with us," said Karen Hallinan, chair of the Police Services Board.

Feb. 9, 1887 is the official date the Smiths Falls Police Service came into being.

"We're older than the OPP and younger than the RCMP," Police Chief Larry Hardy noted.

In those early days articles in the Rideau Record describe concerns regarding vulgarity (swearing in public), loitering and fighting. The increasing skill and complexity of crime today has required all police forces including Smiths Falls to diversify their approach. Smiths Falls has done this by adding specialized enforcement units, and training for officers in a variety of disciplines.

"People in Smiths Falls should be very proud of our force," added Hallinan. "Bottom line is they put their lives on the line every single day for us." For many years the Smiths Falls Police Service has operated under the motto 'Community First' and has lived up to this standard through annual public consultation, creation of a public business plan and responding to community needs as they arise. Staples, who sat on the police services board for 20 years, notes the service's policy to respond to every 9-1-1 call it receives and its increasing efforts over the years in the area of public education. This can include the service's school mentoring program and the speaking engagements representatives have at seniors homes and other locations about telephone fraud.

"This is all part of responding to the needs and requests of the community," Staples said.

The service's ability to listen to the community may be the reason it has survived at least two OPP costings and remained one of the last locally-run police services in the region, but its commitment to provide exceptional service using the latest tools available is what's helping it to fight crime now and into the future. Today's officers have in-cruiser laptops where information is at their finger tips, on-car cameras and radio technology for communications.

"We've kept the pace and we've been able to do that because we've had councils to support us. It's a great team effort," said Hardy in connection to council and community partnerships.

Celebrating the strides policing has made in the community is too big to be contained in a single date. Other special events are being planned to mark this anniversary, including: - By the end of March the Police Service will be creating a new display for the front lobby of the Town Hall complete with artifacts, photographs and other mementoes. The police service is still collecting information and artifacts to help them mark this special anniversary.

-The Heritage House Museum is working with the police service to celebrate this special anniversary by hosting a day of children's activities and putting together their own police exhibit that will be out later this year.

One police officer is researching the force's history and is expected to publish a book on police history before the year is out. The community is invited to attend the Feb. 8 service at the Community Centre (new arena) at 3 p.m.

sroy@perfprint.ca