A 20-year veteran of law enforcement, Brent VanDeSype, is preparing to take on a new administrative role as the Deputy Chief of the Weyburn Police Service, taking over the position vacated by Rod Stafford who is retiring from his career at the police service.
Born and raised in Radville, VanDeSype spent just under seven years with the RCMP, and has been with the Weyburn Police Service for 13 years. Of his duties with the RCMP, he spent nearly six years at the Watrous detachment, and a year with the forensic investigations unit based in Saskatoon.
While growing up in Radville, VanDeSype was impressed with the RCMP officers who were stationed at the detachment there.
“Even at the time, I didn’t envision myself becoming a police officer, but if I did, I knew I’d want to model myself after them,” he said, noting he later moved to Nanaimo, B.C., where he met his wife.
At one point, she suggested to him to look into pursuing a law enforcement career, and he ended up being recruited to the RCMP. Taking the training at the RCMP Academy in Regina, he had been tapped to go back to B.C. for his first posting, but he made a request for a detachment back in his home province.
“I wanted the small community type of policing,” he said.
Making the move from the RCMP to the municipal force in Weyburn was an adjustment, said VanDeSype, noting that the three-man detachment in Watrous meant covering a huge geographic area with seven different towns, often alone.
While the WPS is small compared to a city police department, the geographic area is small and on a shift there are between two to four officers on, he said.
“It’s very, very important the community supports you and has your back if you need it,” said VanDeSype. “Weyburn’s very much community-based policing.”
“The biggest difference is we have a 24-hour service. In Watrous, a good majority of the time you’re on your own. Here we can get from one end of the city to the other in a reasonable amount of time,” he added.
VanDeSype admits he never envisioned being in the chair as second-in-command of the WPS, as he always saw himself as working on the streets rather than as an administrator.
“I think that changed when the new chief arrived from Winnipeg,” he said, referring Chief Jamie Blunden, who is a 30-year veteran of the Winnipeg Police Service. VanDeSype said as he got to know Blunden, they found they work together very well with similar views on how policing ought to work.
“It’s going to be a big learning curve for me, but we hope to improve anywhere we can,” he said, adding they are happy with the staff and members they have right now.
The WPS will have three new recruits who will start at Police College in January with the aim to be done by June, and at that time Chief Blunden hopes to roll out a restructuring of the ranks at WPS, with four corporals in charge of four platoons of officers. Once the new recruits have completed their training and are ready to begin duties, the WPS should be at full strength for the numbers they have been approved for by the Police Commission.
For himself, once his duties officially begin at the start of January, he will take on an administrative role at WPS as well as being a part of provincial and national associations for police chiefs and deputy chiefs, in addition to the inter-departmental cooperation shared between police services around Saskatchewan and across Canada.
