At a bustling Brackendale café RCMP Sgt. Jolaine Percival sips her coffee while scrolling on her cellphone. She nods and smiles at anyone who looks her way, either because they recognize her, or the uniform. Percival took over from Staff Sgt. Brian Cumming, when he retired in April. She is currently acting south zone commander at Squamish RCMP and oversees the detachment’s 30 regular officers.
The Squamish Chief caught up with Percival for a chat. What follows is an edited version of that conversation.
Q: When did you know you wanted to be a police officer, and why?
A: I knew at a very young age that the world wasn’t fair, I would always be pointing out when things were not fair. My mom was like, “Honey, life is not fair.” I thought that kind of sucks, to be honest. I knew I wanted to do something that helped the community.
Q: What does it feel like now, knowing kids may look up to you and want to be an officer too?
A: I always connected with kids. I ended up [eventually] getting promoted as a sergeant to the Burnaby school liaison section. I had nine constables that went to all the schools and there were a lot of schools. My thought process was if you make that impression with youth at a very young age, then maybe when that choice comes of what path they are going to take, they might remember, they might make that positive decision. That will alleviate calls for service … down the road…. That is kind of why I think the RCMP has done a really good job with diversifying, with gender, and with openly supporting gays and lesbians and transgender – because we do have all different types of people working in the organization. They committed to having a certain amount of women and to having visible minorities.
Q: Police officers obviously see a lot and deal with a lot. How do you handle that?
A: My dad was a longshoreman for 37 years. He gave me the best advice: “Humans are humans. You have to treat people like people. You don’t know where they are coming from and their background or anything. The moment that you stop doing that is probably when you should stop doing the job.” That makes sense.
Q: How do you not take the horrible things you see home?
A: We’ve seen really nasty things, but… we have counsellors we can talk to, we have psychologists in place and it has to be there.
I can recall the first really horrible scene that I think I ever went to – it was an accident in Richmond. It was a driver, a youth… it ended up the vehicle took out about six of 10 youth standing on the side of the road. When I got to scene there was one [victim] still lodged in the windshield. I remember dealing with it, processing it… but I remember going back to the detachment and a member that I worked with was sitting in front of the computer crying. And it dawned on me that not all of us process things the same and our coping skills are different. If you need to cry, then cry. Society doesn’t know that about us. They also don’t understand that when everyone is tucked in bed, at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. in the morning there is actually police out there working.
Q: Perhaps because of what officers go through, they seem to have a tight bond?
A: It is a family and it has to be. At any given time, I would die to support the people in the community. But I would also die to support the people I work with. So that is a pretty big thing. I would lay down my life – straight up. I don’t want to die and I also don’t want to take someone’s life. But I can tell you without a hesitation if someone pulled a gun... I would absolutely react because I have to. It is part of my job and it is who I am.
That psychological burden, I don’t think I would want to wish on anybody. We aren’t killers and that is a pretty big thing to have to carry and that is why they have all the measures in place to ensure we are healthy.
Q: How is policing different in Squamish compared to where you were before in Richmond and Burnaby?
A: Having 19,000 people like you do in Squamish, it feels a little bit more manageable. You know who is in the community and what they are doing.
For police officers who live in [Squamish] it might be a little bit tougher, where you are going to run into people that you know, but, then there is that person who cleaned up and is healthier and police officers know who that is and acknowledge it and have that communication. It is a little bit more that you are invested and hands on. I really like Squamish. The vibe just being on the coast really reminds me of growing up [in Pender Harbour], it is just a little bit more lower key and relaxed – I like that.
Q: What else do you wish people knew about policing?
A: There’s a lot of stuff on Facebook right now and on social media about police officers. I can’t change people’s perception, everybody has their own dealings with police officers – whether they got pulled over and got a ticket, or whether they got pulled over and the officer let them go. They are going to have their own ideas.… As much as I am not going to judge who I am dealing with, who is sitting in front of me, I hope that they look at me and think, “I am not going to judge who she is.” That is big, so that is a hard thing to ask people to do – just don’t judge.
Q: Anything I didn’t ask you that you want to say?
A: Sometimes we hear comments that there were five police cars at the Bean [cafe], for example. Well, for one thing, ask yourself are you allowed a coffee break, because we work a 12-hour shift without any breaks whatsoever, so if they are at a coffee shop having a coffee, I think they deserve it. And if we are trying to support local then I think that is a good thing, and I think if they are out in the community, that is a good thing.
