"The weight of the community on your shoulders." The challenges and rewards of small town policing
When OPP detective Ken Leppert got assigned to Killaloe, Ont., with his young family, he was excited to get back to his small town roots.
"Within weeks, the community was knocking on our door and welcoming my wife, holding baby showers, social events, inviting us to various homes and community gatherings," said Leppert. "It was a wonderful place to live and work."
That changed when he found himself reopening a suicide case that had been prematurely closed by the original investigators a year earlier. He couldn't blame them, either.
"The initial investigators were confident in their findings," he said, "but as our investigation continued, they certainly realized that they had been duped by [someone] in the community. They were very intentionally misled."
Leppert added that as a police officer in a small town, you're known not only as law enforcement but as a community member. As a result, Leppert said, you get to know people and you learn to trust them.
In the initial investigation, that trust factor may have played a role in closing the book early on an otherwise suspicious death. And once Leppert re-opened the investigation, he faced another factor particularly difficult to maintain in a small town: privacy.
'EVERYONE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE.'
"You can't just leave at four-thirty in the afternoon and become anonymous," said Leppert. "Everyone knows who you are."
As the Killaloe investigation grew more complex, Leppert and his team realized they would need to move their operation out of town.
"It required a workspace where [we] could discuss the case openly, without interruption and without concern of information being disclosed to the community, intentionally or otherwise."
Retired RCMP Constable Nigel Paterson said anonymity is less of an issue in the big city. He was stationed in Banff, Alta. in 1990 when a young cab driver was murdered there.
You can't just leave at four-thirty in the afternoon and become anonymous. Everyone knows who you are.
"Anytime I saw anybody, people knew that I was the investigator," Paterson said. "And very often the murder would become the topic of conversation. How the investigation was going, whether we were any closer to solving it or identifying who did it, and I would always answer as best I could."
- Watch the episode of CBC's The Detectives on this case, 'The Last Fare,' airing Oct. 25
A small town's curiosity for answers, especially in a case with sensitive, disturbing details, creates an added pressure, as Detective Mike Richard describes.
"I think it was the weight of the case, the weight of the community on your shoulders. It was a missing person that turns into a sexual assault and homicide of the worst kind," said Richard, who worked on a child abduction case in Fredericton in 1995.
STATISTICALLY MORE DANGEROUS
According to StatsCan, the homicide rate in rural Canada is 25 per cent higher than it is in urban areas. Some parts of rural Saskatchewan report a homicide rate that is more than two times the national average.
The higher homicide rate takes a toll on police resources in small towns. In an urban setting, police responding to a call always have a partner to assist and, if necessary, backup can arrive within minutes. It's an advantage rural policing doesn't have, said Detective Peter Baker, who worked on a multiple-murder case in Chatham, Ont., in 1991.
"I've definitely wished for backup to arrive sooner," he said. "In these [rural] areas down here at any given time, there would only be seven police officers to cover a very large swath of terrain. So, we always knew it could be a very long time for backup to arrive."
For the RCMP, that changed in 2007 after Constables Christopher Worden and Douglas Scott were killed in successive months while out alone on isolated calls. The police force implemented a new backup policy for remote areas that forbids officers from responding to potentially dangerous situations on their own.
'UNIQUE OPPORTUNITIES'
While isolation, geography and socio-economic climate create unique challenges for law enforcement, policing in small towns also creates unique opportunities. For example, working a case in a small town made it easy for Paterson to track down every single person that was in Banff on the night of the crime.
"It allowed us to compile a list of suspects that were in town and systematically eliminate them until we found our killer," Paterson said.
He also said that if the murder had happened in a big city, it may not have been solved. "The cooperation that we received from the community … was incredible."
Killaloe shared more than just their witness statements with us, they shared a part of their lives with us. And for that I'll be forever grateful.
Similarly, in Killaloe, which had a population of just 700 at the time, Leppert was able to canvass every single home in the area to find information and leads on a major case. By the end of the case, Leppert was given more than just information from the town.
"Killaloe shared more than just their witness statements with us, they shared a part of their lives with us. And for that I'll be forever grateful," said Leppert.
Leppert added that the positives of working small communities far outweigh the dangers.
"When living in a small town, you can see the impact policing has on that community much more directly. And as an officer, it's very rewarding to have that direct feedback from the community," he says.
To find out more about these detectives and the major cases they helped solve, watch The Detectives on CBC.