During the spring break three students from Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School participated in the RCMP Youth Academy.
Grade 12 students Chelsey Simpkins and Nathan Sullivan, and Grade 11 student Aiden Fentiman travelled to Williams Lake for the course that ran March 16-22.
Chelsey says she signed up for the week-long course because she’s always wanted to be a police officer.
An army cadet, Chelsey says she wanted to try it out at the mini-version of RCMP training “boot camp,” and she especially enjoyed the marching drills.
“It was different from how [cadets] do it, so it took time to ‘get it’, but it was really cool in the end – in how we did the drill. It was pretty ‘insane’; I really liked it a lot.”
It was difficult to synchronize the moves with all the other students, so she was “pretty impressed” with how they all stuck with it and mastered the moves, Chelsey adds.
“We never gave up, we kept practising and practising, and then we got it and we felt good at the end.”
She also enjoyed a case study that followed a crime from detection to charges, she says, as well as a scenario where they did covert building searches.
The sneaking around was fun, but Chelsey says she and her academy “partner” and new friend, Mercedes Sigsworth, forgot one of the important steps in their mock building search when the went inside.
“We forgot to turn on the light, and we got shot.”
Chelsey says another aspect she found a lot of fun was splashing along a muddy road in the bush in a police SUV driven by a RCMP constable, and then pulling over a “fugitive.”
Nathan says he joined the RCMP Youth Academy because he wanted a taste of what the “real RCMP Depot” (cadet training academy) would be like.
“That is a really good career, and it’s always changing. You’re not really doing the exact same thing every single day.”
The best part of the training was acting out case scenarios, he adds, where police and youth teamed up.
Nathan explains they took initial notes and then attended “court” a couple of days later, where they had to testify and make their case to ensure the charges were upheld by the judge.
He notes discipline was tight, and every dorm room had to be left spotless and a mirror-image of every other room.
“We had to be up at 5 a.m. for physical training and we’d do that for an hour – just running, push-ups, sit-ups – or we’d be in the gym doing circuits, and then we’d have our showers and breakfast.”
Noting he didn’t mind the physical work, Nathan says it was snowing some mornings and certain lifting exercises were difficult for some youth.
“We’d all work as a team to get through it. The teamwork was a really big part of the whole academy.”
Then there were classes in law enforcement, he adds, with several presenters each day speaking on the more than 150 speciality sections in the RCMP.
One such presentation was on a real-life murder case, which he notes was among the most interesting and “really graphic,” but he enjoyed seeing how all the pieces of evidence came together to solve the case.
“Also, hearing about how they put ‘bugs’ in the house to listen in on conversations, but that’s only [allowed] depending on what kind of case they are working on – like murder cases.”
Nathan says he was surprised to learn how much dedication is needed and the amount of paperwork and court time a police officer undergoes, but police work is nevertheless “a really cool job.”
Aiden is currently away attending another course, but reportedly also enjoyed his experiences at the academy.
Chelsea says her uncle is an RCMP officer and her father is in the auxiliary, which inspires her to follow in their footsteps.
“I know the cops around town, and talk to them and see their uniforms – and you know, I just want to be in that uniform.”
She has the love of people, of helping them, and of problem solving necessary to be a good police officer, Chelsey explains.
“I realized at that moment – as soon as we left [the academy] – that this is the career I don’t want to turn away from. This is something I want, and I know I am going to get it.”
