A 59-year-old rookie | The Press

Cap, uniform, right hand raised: Daniel Dufour almost looked like a recruit like any other when he took the oath to become a police officer last October. But with his 59 years and his salt and pepper hair, he could have been the father of most of his new colleagues. And he already had “34 years of policing” under his belt.

The man is one of 63 reservist police officers rehired by the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) since the creation of this new status a year ago. A way to overcome the organization’s significant recruitment difficulties and to send reinforcements to agents exhausted by overtime.

“I never thought I would have the chance to return to the police,” explains Daniel Dufour, in an interrogation room at the West operational center.

The office is bustling with life, with investigators coming in and out, discussing their cases out loud. A photo of a suspect has been crossed out with black lines to celebrate his imprisonment. A dirty joke is displayed on a sheet of paper that hangs from the ceiling. An atmosphere a thousand miles from the peaceful retirement to which Daniel Dufour would have been entitled after a busy career.

He now plays a mentoring and supporting role to a team of eight investigators, four of whom were promoted at once. “I think I had more experience than all eight added together,” he said with a laugh. Fifty-nine years old, “for the police, that’s old”.

Restrictive criteria

If they are never officially responsible for an investigation, reservists have the same powers and the same obligations as other SPVM police officers, explains Lieutenant Lyne Labelle, responsible for the reservists program. They are qualified to shoot and carry a service weapon on their belt.

In a meeting room at headquarters, she details the current hiring criteria: you must have been a police officer with the SPVM for 30 years, have retired less than three years ago and be recommended by your former bosses.

But “you have to be careful: it’s not because you’ve been a police officer for 30 years that we’re going to re-hire you as a reservist,” she says.

Reservists help with investigations, others can replace school crossing guards or be deployed to supervise festive events – not demonstrations which risk turning into riots. Some accompany victims to court, freeing an ordinary police officer. They are paid between $60 and $64 per hour, under the collective agreement concluded with the Fraternity.

The SPVM requires a minimum of 10 days of availability per year, but most reservists work much more often.

Daniel Dufour works three or four days a week. He is sometimes absent for long periods to travel.

“I wanted to see what retirement was like, and I enjoyed it for two and a half years,” continues the police officer. I was hoping not to just be assigned to administrative tasks, I wanted to be involved, and I was served as I wished. »

“The needs are dire”

Because the policeman is immersed in the action. On the night of November 8 to 9, a shot was fired at the Jewish school Yeshiva Gedola, in Côte-des-Neiges. It’s Daniel Dufour’s third day as a reservist.

The police officer jumps into the car with his colleague responsible for the investigation. The photos of The Press from that day show them arriving at the crime scene, masked due to a COVID-19 outbreak among the team.

Last February, the police officer himself conducted the interrogation of a suspect in a firearms assault case. “I was very lucky, it worked. Within an hour and forty, I had all the confessions,” he remembers.

The head of the West operational center, Commander Denis Tessier, is delighted to be able to entrust him with “more difficult interrogations, because he has a success rate which is really very, very high”. “He’s an expert in interrogations,” he adds.

“We are having trouble finding police officers at the moment for hiring, in general,” he said. The needs are dire. »