THUNDER BAY - The new Ontario Provincial Police regional commander for the Northwest region said his top priority will be building stronger relationships with the communities his officers serve.
Mark Pritchard was promoted to the rank of chief superintendent and named the regional commander of the OPP Northwest region.
“Our relationships with our community and our community members is our number one issue for policing,” Pritchard said. “I think it’s very important for us to maintain and build on those relationships.”
Pritchard is taking over for outgoing regional commander, Darrell Smiley, who retired earlier this year. With more than 30 years of service with the OPP, Pritchard has an extensive background with the force, including serving as a case manager in the criminal investigation branch, helping update the OPP’s Quality Assurance Manual for homicide investigation, and most recently, serving as the commander of the Aboriginal Policing Bureau at the OPP general headquarters.
Pritchard will be overseeing more than 500 officers and employees working in 15 detachment offices. Pritchard said there are a number of challenges facing the Northwest region in terms of policing.
“The geography and the placement of where the detachments are, some of them are extremely busy, the remote locations, being able to support them and the logistics,” he explained. “A big part of what I see us doing is working with our communities and our community groups to create safer communities and reduce victimization.”
According to Pritchard, building stronger relationships with communities involves front-line policing.
“The communities need to know who their front line officers are and those officers need to be engaged in the communities and the community members and they need to interact,” he said.
Building stronger relationships with First Nations police services and First Nations communities is also a top priority for the new commander.
Pritchard said that there are number of challenges facing remote communities, particularly First Nations police forces that serve those communities.
“The remoteness of many of the communities, the social and economic problems, many of which land in the laps of the police officers because there aren’t, in some of the communities, the other support mechanisms,” he said. “We need to see if we can move that forward and help the communities to be safe and better communities certainly to the extent the police are able to.”
This involvement will include working with community groups, youth groups, and First Nations police services directly.
“My first priority is going to be to meet as many officers as I can, as well as community groups, and First Nations police services,” Pritchard said.
