Aware of skepticism towards police in recent months and the importance of their work, the Ste Anne Police Detachment took their training to heart on Saturday.

Kelly Keith, a police veteran of 32 years and officer training specialist, says 99% of policing is communicating correctly to mitigate the use of force.

Sergeant Kelly Keith

“I teach rightful communication up to a shoot,” explains Keith. “We’re doing some crisis de-escalation training and we’re going to get into some reality-based training. “

The day began with three hours of theory regarding how to mitigate use-of-force and was followed by another three hours of practicing both verbal techniques and proper use-of-force.

“When we do reality-based training, some will be with force and some will be that the officers are to communicate so they don’t use force,” explains Keith, who, along with Chief of Ste Anne Police Marc Robichaud, was acting as role players in the training.

When practicing shooting scenarios, officers wore vests that offered pain penalties in the form of an electric shock. They were also taught how to disarm someone with various intermediate weapons.

Keith has worked with the Ste Anne Police for the last 10 years and has spent 13 years with the Winnipeg Police before that. He spent time in Victoria and Vancouver as a police officer, performs training in the United States, and has even trained officers internationally on a number of occasions.

“As a small department, we’re always trying to find ways to improve ourselves and stay current,” says Robichaud, “and the level of training that we have from Kelly is an extremely high level.”

Robichaud says their department puts a huge emphasis on use-of-force and de-escalation training which they refresh on a regular basis.

“It’s a refresher,” agrees Keith, “but I always add in additional training. I do a fair bit of training myself and I watch a lot of videos to show the benefits of doing as we’re teaching.”