1st Edmonton Police Service recruits of the year graduate at city hall – Edmonton | 24CA News
New police recruits are about to hit Edmonton streets and serve and shield the neighborhood.
Const. Ronald Nyikabe is considered one of them. He celebrated his commencement at a ceremony at City Hall Friday alongside fellow recruits.
“It’s finally done — we’re finally here. It’s been a long road, it’s been a lot of work — a lot of sweat and tears,” Nyikabe stated.
Nyikabe was born within the Congo and grew up in Edmonton. He beforehand owned his personal development firm.Edmonton Police Service recruits
Edmonton Police Service Const. Ronald Nyikabe at his gratuation ceremony at Edmonton metropolis corridor on Friday, Feb. 10, 2023.
Global News
He additionally volunteered at Edmonton colleges and labored with youth locally, however felt like he wasn’t doing sufficient.
“I also wanted to sort of be a positive role model for a lot of them — be something that I didn’t have growing up,” Nyikabe stated.
“I don’t want them to be afraid of somebody who’s wearing a badge.”
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The Edmonton Police Service (EPS) graduates come from quite a lot of backgrounds.
“There’s 28 totally different people in that class.” stated Staff Sgt. Leanne Kilb with the EPS Recruiting and Selection Unit.
“It’s something that we should be really proud of — diverse thought.”
The members come from 9 completely different international locations outdoors of Canada and converse 14 completely different languages.
This graduating class is only a fraction of what the power is seeking to rent.
“We’re looking at about 120 new hires and about 20+ experienced officers this year,” Kilb stated.
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Kilb stated EPS hasn’t run an skilled officer program in a number of years and with many staffer reaching retirement, the service wished to keep up protection.
“We want to make sure that we’re also attracting some experience here, right? So instead of just having a whole bunch of new people, we have different perspectives of policing mixed in as well,” Kilb defined.
Through the pandemic, EPS stated it noticed a slight drop in candidates and is seeking to offset these numbers by growing class sizes.
“We’re trying to build our capacity for the future,” Kilb stated.
“We’re not having any issues with filling, that’s for sure, but we’ve seen a decline in the amount of applications — not the quality.”
That’s additionally, partially, as a result of COVID largely put recruiting occasions on pause.
“Edmonton typically will do some out-of-town travel. What was out of the norm is with COVID there was no career fairs, there was no in-person events,” Kilb defined.
“Now we’re really ramping it back up.
“We want our people in Alberta to know that we want them here, we want them to stay here.”
For Nyikabe, he’s desirous to step into his new function.
“One of my plans in the future is to become a student service officer, so I’m hoping to work with the youth in our city,” Nyikabe stated.
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