Familiar face welcomed to Staff Sgt. role

Times Reporter   

 

Shortly after moving to Strathmore RCMP member Kevin Reilly knew this was where he wanted to stay. Reilly has been in Strathmore for six years out of his 23 years on the force. In April he found out he was being promoted to Staff Sergeant, a position he was holding out for, and hoping for, over the past few years.

“I liked the community as soon as I got here, and within a year that was always kind of the idea I had hoped might happen,” said Reilly. 

There were a lot of opportunities in the last three years for him to move up in the ranks and become Staff Sgt. in another community, but he held out, hoping that one day the position would become available in the community he loves. 

“All of those I didn’t bother applying because I wanted to wait for the chance here. Which is a big gamble because there’s a chance it may not even go promotional let alone the fact that you may not (get it), so you might not get the opportunity to even try for it, but you kind of hope and if that’s what you want some of us are a little more patient than others. I got lucky, it all worked out,” said Reilly. 

The Strathmore detachment is now looking to fill the role of Sergeant, and once that position is filled Reilly will hand over some of the operational work to them, and will focus even more on the administrative side of running the detachment. He will make sure the office is running properly, while being more involved within the community and with both the County and Town councils. 

As a kid Reilly said he always knew right from wrong and did the right things, he always wanted to help people and be involved in the community. 

“I refereed soccer a lot when I was a kid, from the time I was about eight or nine-years-old, and I suspect that had some kind of an influence,” said Reilly.

“It is a similar type thing where you’ve got to intervene and make calls, and not please people all the time and do the right thing even though it may not be the popular choice.” 

As soon as Reilly was old enough there was no question in his mind what he planned to do with his life. He went to University and obtained a degree, which was a requirement to join back then, in Physical Education before joining the force.

His degree specializes in coaching instruction and he feels that he applies a lot of his University training with his fellow staff in the detachment. He spends a lot of time mentoring them, coaching them, teaching them and helping them develop. 

Reilly began his training in Regina and was posted in five different communities before Strathmore. 

“I’ve been involved obviously in small towns now, and to be honest I wouldn’t go back (to a city), I like small towns, I like small town policing, I like being involved in the community and I think that’s part of it,” said Reilly.

“There’s never a dull day as much as I am now farther away from the actual calls and that, there’s still a lot of operational stuff to be done and fixed and worked on. I go out and speak to the guys and listen to them about things and try to get their input and try to teach them about how to be better police officers.

“The biggest thing for me is getting into the community, being involved in our schools, being involved in community events and being involved in our community in general. Those are all big things but it’s certainly also a challenge. Like I said there’s never a dull moment but there certainly is always challenges and hopefully we can improve on what we do and how we do it, that’s always the kind of goal. I suspect 90 per cent of us in our life are trying to do that in our jobs.”

Reilly is looking forward to what the future has to offer with his promotion, and is looking forward to the challenges involved.  

“I think that we can improve our service, I think we can certainly make our community safer and that’s kind of our goal.”