‘I owe this country’: London, Ont.’s new top cop came to Canada as Vietnamese refugee | 24CA News
Thai Truong, who is ready to grow to be the first-ever seen minority police chief in London, Ont., says his whole policing profession has been pushed by two main life occasions: in search of asylum in Canada and his father’s demise.
In an interview with Global News’ Tracy Tong, Truong recounted how his dad and mom fled their homeland after the Vietnam War.
“At the time, my parents were teenagers, and my father had said to my mother that he didn’t want to raise his children in a communist country,” Truong stated. “All that was on their mind was, ‘We need to go to America or Canada, those countries are free.’”
Truong was born in a refugee camp in Bangkok, Thailand, and was named “Thai,” after the nation. He was two years previous when his household lastly acquired news that Canada would obtain them.
In 1981, Truong, his dad and mom and two siblings arrived in Ottawa and settled in northern Ontario the place they acquired assist from the group and the Roman Catholic Church.
“We had the community come together and support, protect, help refugees that they didn’t even know,” Truong stated. “I’m always grateful for that.”
When Truong was 11 years previous, his father, a quick meals supply driver, was killed in a automobile crash whereas returning residence from work. Truong’s fondest reminiscences along with his father embrace watching police films collectively.
“He never understood and couldn’t speak English, but he was fascinated with police movies,” Truong stated. “He watched the show ‘Cops,’ it had first come out back then. And I just remember sitting next to him looking at him. I knew he was in awe of police. He loved what police officers stood for.”
“You hear that term, ‘policing is a calling.’ I knew what I wanted to do my whole life. It was cemented when my father died. That was my call. That is my calling.”
Thai Truong’s household when he was younger.
Contributed.
Truong was sworn in as a York Regional Police constable in 2002 and has spent greater than twenty years with the service, with intensive expertise in human trafficking and arranged crime enforcement. He rose by the ranks over time, most lately holding the place of superintendent within the metropolis of Richmond Hill.
When the 44-year-old is sworn in because the London Police Service’s chief in June, he can even grow to be one of many youngest prime cops within the nation, and what’s believed to be the primary Vietnamese Canadian police chief, although the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police doesn’t monitor information on member ethnicity.
Chief Designate Truong says he reveals as much as work day by day with purpose and goal, and that the identical will probably be true in London. “Sometimes you have bad days, right? I put my mind back there and I remember, I owe this province. I owe our community. I owe this country a lot. Not just for me, but for my family.”
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