You may have seen a new face driving around in one of Bowen’s RCMP vehicles the past few weeks.
Bryan Cuthbertson is the department’s new Constable, serving his first day at the detachment on Sept. 26. Originally from Mission, he transferred from the RCMP in North Vancouver where he’d worked for the past seven years. During that time Cuthbertson focused on property crime and surveillance as part of the Crime Reduction Team, as well as a patrol supervisor.
Cuthbertson joined the three-person force following the departure of Cpl. Adam Koehle at the end of August, after Koehle reached his island term limit of four years. Cuthbertson says he and his family – a wife and young daughter, plus Golden Retriever ‘Tonka’ – were looking for a quieter form of both policing and lifestyle.
“I was really pushing for it,” says Cuthbertson of the Bowen role, saying he was looking at small-town jobs around B.C. or even up in Nunavut. But coming over to work at Bowfest last year tilted the scales in the island’s favour. “I fell in love with the police work. That was a great festival to open my eyes up to the community,” he said, adding he could see it as a great place to raise a family.
As for the RCMP itself, Cuthbertson says there was some family inspiration behind that choice. “I’ve always had my eye on some type of first responder service. My family has a lot of firefighters,” he says. Cuthbertson put his own spin on things though. “I chose to be a bit different I guess. RCMP was my first choice and I was lucky enough to be accepted, and here we are.”
Cuthbertson’s role in North Vancouver involved many incidents of theft, which he acknowledges is a difficult crime to ever resolve. But given the challenge, successful investigations were the highlight of his time on the North Shore.
“The most satisfying (part of the job) to me was always recovering people’s stolen property and then returning it to them. It doesn’t happen too often unfortunately, it’s very difficult to do that,” he explains. “When people have their stuff stolen they kind of forget about it and just believe that it’s never going to come back. So those type of interactions I really loved, having that face-to-face with people and giving them the good news.”
On Bowen, Cuthbertson says the focus is definitely being present around town talking to people. “A lot of community policing, listening to what the community wants and reacting to that… It’s very much communicating with people in public and seeing what needs to happen,” he says, adding he’s been briefed on the importance of waving to passersby, a favourite pastime of his predecessor Koehle.
Since landing here last month the new officer says Bowen has been very welcoming. “Just how friendly people are,” he says of his first impressions. “People are coming up and introducing themselves, and not just because I’m in uniform. People didn’t know I was a cop for at least a week… Everyone seems to be on the same team and pushing toward the same goals. And you can really sense that.”
When he’s not on the job, Cuthbertson says he’s looking forward to checking out Bowen’s many famed hikes and trails, along with taking part in as many sports as possible.
