The man behind the police uniform

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/01/2015 (4160 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The church was full that day. Standing room only.

And it was one of the biggest churches in Winnipeg — Immanuel Pentacostal on Wilkes Avenue.

It was a police officer’s funeral, and as far as I could see that day last March, one attended by almost every cop in the city.

Insp. Jim Poole had died days earlier — his heart suddenly quit beating.

I’d come to know of Jim years earlier while covering the cop beat and would bump into him off and on at police news conferences and at what police call major scenes.

Despite me being in the media and him a cop, our intermittent contact with one another was always cordial. I can’t say that about a lot of other police officers.

Over the years, he rose in rank and his responsibilities grew, yet he still had time for me, even when he was in the professional standards unit — internal affairs on TV cop shows — and respectfully said he couldn’t answer my questions on investigations being conducted against other officers.

I left the newspaper’s cop beat about six years ago to become a political reporter at the Manitoba Legislative Building.

I stayed in contact with several police officers, but not Jim. That changed during the summer of 2013 when I was on an evening bike ride. I’d just pedalled over the Redwood Bridge towards Main Street when I spotted a number of police cars and uniformed officers in a parking lot behind a fast-food outlet. My first thought was it was one of those major crime scenes, although as I got closer I could tell there wasn’t a lot of tension or urgency.

Standing in the middle of them was a tall officer in a white shirt and protective vest.

Insp. Jim Poole was in his element and told me he and the other officers were doing traffic duty.

He explained the idea is when police do high-visibility enforcement, not only are they guaranteed to catch bad guys, but other law-abiding motorists see police at work.

After I asked why he was out there instead of at home, he said it was because if he wanted them to do extra traffic enforcement, he should, too.

He also extended an invitation for me to accompany him when he signed out a car and went out by himself to catch drivers using cellphones when they’re supposed to be driving. For him, no enforcement was enough against distracted drivers.

I took him up on his offer, and a couple of months later we went out together. I was surprised by the amount of reaction the story and accompanying video received and forwarded some of it to Jim. And we agreed to do it again sometime, perhaps even timing it to the province announcing it was considering even higher penalties for distracted driving.

Jim died March 7. He was 52, just a few months younger than me.

What impressed me at his funeral was the strength of his family and their continuing commitment to policing. And the influence Jim had on so many people.

In the end, it wasn’t so much about the story itself that affected me, but more the man.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca