TIMMINS - Future police officers are looking for volunteers to get arrested.
The police foundations program at Northern College is running scenarios next month for the second-year students to test their skills, and they need volunteers to participate.
“It’s important for students to get different kinds of learning environments,” said program co-ordinator Rick Lemiuex. “They get theory in class, they get to watch it from the officers, and now they get to apply it.”
Volunteers will play the roles of people who cause disturbances, are involved in domestic disputes, or are in other situations that police have to handle in their daily work.
Lemieux said that having strangers involved increases the students' stress levels, which they need to learn to manage.
“When they do it with the classmates, they’re giggling because it’s their friends,” he said. “But I want them to be stressed when we do these because they have to learn how to deal with stress because policing is a stressful job.”
Lemieux said the comfort level from doing the scenarios with their classmates needs to be challenged in the final test.
“This is not the job for you if you can’t handle stress,” he said.
Throughout the two-year police foundations program, students have class time, scenarios, and ride-alongs with local police to learn the ins and outs of police work. The ride-alongs happen on Fridays and Saturdays.
He said the experience grows with the students as they go through the program.
“We start with the first years, and if they’re ever stuck, they can yell ‘pause’ and everything stops, and they can ask me or another officer about what they can do, but once we get to their second years, they don’t have that option,” he said.
Lemieux said he takes his own experiences with the Timmins Police Service as inspiration for many of the scenarios that play out.
“I put together 22 different scenarios, and every once in a while, I’ll remember a call, and I’ll type it out for them,” said Lemiuex.
The scenarios will occur on April 3, 10, and 17 from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. and April 7 and 14 from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Anyone interested in taking part can reach out to Lemieux at [email protected].
“The more, the better because we run through five scenarios per day so we can have other actors, and the rest of the volunteers can watch from up top,” said Lemieux.