INNISFAIL – The community has a new police sergeant and he was officially unveiled publicly last week at the most appropriate forum.
Sgt. Ian Ihme, 42, a police veteran of 20 years, was introduced by Innisfail RCMP Staff Sgt. Chris Matechuk to the Innisfail Policing & Safe Community Committee on March 31.
“It (committee) shows that people are really invested in their police services and they want to have input, which is great,” said Ihme, who was impressed to find out the town had a forum for policing issues. “A committee like this is kind of like our eyes and ears to guide us what we do. It’s greatly important. It’s good to see a committee that’s committed to it too.”
The 20-year RCMP veteran, who started his new posting in Innisfail about a month ago, comes to town after considering a change from his policing duties in the City of Red Deer.
Ihme knew there was a position posted in Innisfail and reached out to Matechuk.
“I applied for it because this is where I wanted to come,” said Ihme, who still lives in Red Deer. “A lot of my career I had been working in investigative plainclothes policing. I wanted to come to general duty policing again. Innisfail was on my list of places that I wanted to go to. It ‘s a nice community and it would just be something different.”
Although he has worked in small communities before, Innisfail may very well be the difference he was looking for, and also the smallest community of his career.
Many years ago, he was posted in Banff, a small town outside the tourist season but mushrooming to 10 times its size during summer.
“It’s definitely different. It’s touristy. It’s transient, whereas Innisfail is not,” he said, adding he also worked in Maskwacis (formerly Hobbema), another smaller-sized community but vastly different to Innisfail.
“A different type of policing, a very different community – different needs, different wants," he said.
There’s no doubt Innisfail is far different than Banff, Maskwacis and the City of Red Deer. However, like many other communities a proactive law enforcement brand dedicated to community policing is a high priority, and that suits Ihme just fine.
“I think that’s a big part of policing in any community, and especially a place like Innisfail where it’s small enough where people know each other. They get to know the police. We get to know people. It’s always important,” he said.
“We got some basketball games planned with the kids at schools coming up. The guys just finished doing a hockey thing before I got here with some kids. It is definitely something we push.”
His duty will be primarily operations. He will be in charge of the scheduling, overseeing the actual police work being done, and filling in on work that needs to be done when commanding officer Matechuk is away.
Ihme is the first working sergeant at the Innisfail detachment in almost two years, and Matechuk is grateful to have him onboard.
“He comes with a wealth of experience,” said Matechuk. “If I leave for the weekend I don’t have to worry, and plus sharing the workload and supporting operations and supporting the boots on the ground is much better when we have a guy dedicated to operations.
“I look after more of the administrative stuff,” he added. “Ian can look after the operations, so it supports our members who are doing the investigations.”
