Field placement next step for recruits

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The first three members of the soon-to-be-created Tsuu T'ina Police Department graduated March 14 from the Alberta Justice Staff College.

Tammy Dodginhorse, Andrea Runner, and Kevin Starlight of the Tsuu T'ina Nation near Calgary were among the 20 Aboriginal graduates of the college's Police Recruit Training Program.

Starting April 1, the Tsuu T'ina police graduates begin a six-month to year-long field recruit training program with the RCMP detachment in Okotoks, located about 20 minutes south of Calgary.

"It's nice to see two women in there," said Dodginhorse. Best marks among the seven or so applicants determined who was chosen for the three Tsuu T'ina openings at AJSC, she added.

"Before the RCMP had policed our reserve. Now we are looking towards our own force," said Colleen Dodginhorse, assistant administrator for the southern Alberta First Nation, located on the western border of Calgary.

The federal solicitor general's department, the Alberta justice department and Tsuu T'ina Nation are expected to sign a policing agreement this spring, she added.

AJSC's 13-week police recruit training program, funded by Alberta Justice, is designed to prepare offices for service in Alberta's smaller municipalities.

Since the program began in 1987, more than 100 Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal recruits have graduated from the program, said Ann Thorn, AJSC's manager.

Instead of being made up of mostly Aboriginal recruits, as is usually the case, this latest class are all Aboriginal.

"Before the bands were hiring non-Natives. Now they are hiring a greater percentage of Aboriginal people," said Thorn.

Seven of the other new graduates-two from Alexis First Nation near Edmonton and five from the North Peace Tribal Police-will also become the first officers in new tribal police departments. The four recruits from the Lesser Slave Lake regional police will join a department only several months old.

The Blood Tribal Police will add two new graduates to its force and the Stoney Tribal Police will add four.