The Stratford Police is continuing it’s community engagement initiative “Questions for the Cops”, which invites the public to submit questions for the purpose of creating dialogue between the public and police.
Questions can be submitted over social media to the Stratford Police’s Facebook, Twitter as well as to any of their local media partners.
The questions are collected through the month and will be answered at the end of each month. Anyone is invited to ask to allow the community to gain a better understanding of what the police do.
“What is an Auxiliary Police Officer”
The Stratford Police’s Auxiliary Policing Unit was implemented at the beginning of 2020 and was made up of 10 volunteers form the community.
The program slowed due to the pandemic but now is getting ready to move forward again.
The purpose of the Auxiliary Policing Program is to allow interested individuals the chance to volunteer with the police for the purpose of improving the wellbeing of the community through community safety and crime prevention initiatives.
Each member receives 40-50 hours of training, which includes de-escalation, use of force, information regarding the various units of the Stratford Police, how they collaborate with other community agencies and how they can be an integral part of that collaborated effort.
Each member is required to volunteer a minimum of 12 hours per month to assist in different ways including:
- Crime prevention initiatives, ie: providing information to the public on various topics by way of presentations, handing out information at community events, or through targeted community engagement
- Assisting with both crowd control and traffic control, with parades being one example
- Assisting at R.I.D.E. Programs for the purpose of traffic control and public education
- Assisting Patrol Officers in ride-along programs
- Assisting at community events, such as our annual food and toy drives
- Search for missing persons
- Other functions as authorized by the Chief of Police
Applications to become an Stratford Police Service Auxiliary Services Officer are being accepted until June 11th. Visit the Stratford Police website at stratfordpolice.com for more information.
