Looking forward to 'making a difference': Edmonton Police recruits graduate

Forty-eight new Edmonton police recruits graduated Friday. Class 160 is one of the largest classes EPS has had.

Edmonton police said they are getting a lot of applicants and are hiring more to "meet the demands and the staffing issues that we're facing."

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"We have been approved and are being encouraged to train more recruits," EPS Staff Sgt. Travis Kerr said.

"We definitely need more people, there's no question, the city's growing, it's getting busier."

Along with larger class sizes, the recruits are coming from more diverse backgrounds, according to Kerr.

"We're getting recruits that are born in other countries, not just within different parts of Canada, but different parts of the world," Kerr said.

"I've been working in this area for almost two years, five graduations now, and it never ceases to amaze me when I hear the bios of these recruits and just the wide variety of experiences and diversity that they have."

Many EPS recruits have previous experience as a first responder, like Stephanie Meacham, who was a volunteer police officer in Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

"I've always been very community focused, working through volunteering for the police where I used to live, but also sports teams, anything, really, that I could volunteer for," Meacham said.

"Now this being my home, I want to be able to help the communities that I'm going to live in."

She said things are a bit different here and training had its challenges, but the class, as a team, helped and supported each other.

That sense of community is something Jeffery Fox, who previously worked with the RCMP, enjoys.

"Having people available all the time to be able to kind of back you up, and basically complete the task that we need to get done … It's a good organization," Fox said.

He added that EPS tends to have more service calls and more to deal with at the same time, compared to RCMP, so the larger numbers are helpful.

"I'm looking forward to everything, honestly, just learning more that we're going to go through and especially just getting out into the community and hopefully making a difference out there and helping the people that really need it."

EPS usually has two or three recruit classes a year.

Graduates go through 27 weeks of academy foundations training.

Earlier this year, police said recent recruit classes have seen a 93 per cent success rate.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nav Sangha