The RCMP didn’t have to look far when deciding who should be the next officer in command of the Houston detachment.
It has promoted Corporal Mark Smaill, formerly the second in command here, to the rank of sergeant, placing him in charge of the detachment which numbers eight officers in addition to himself and, at the moment, six civilian employees.
This is Smaill’s second stint in Houston — he came here as a constable right out of training in 2007, staying until 2013 when he transferred to Prince Rupert to be a member of the force’s coastal police unit.
He was there until 2016 and then spent one year on a variety of crime prevention and community policing initiatives before returning to Houston in 2018 to be the detachment’s operations non-commissioned officer responsible for day-to-day administrative and logistical tasks.
The officer-in-charge position became open last year when Sergeant Jason Burndred was transferred to the Kootenays.
Born in Manitoba, Smaill was a firefighter with the Saskatoon Fire Department for 10 years before joining the RCMP.
“As a firefighter, a first responder, you’d go to a scene and when done, you’d come back, clean yourself up and wait for the next call,” Smaill said.
“But as a first responder, I got to see the police — I saw that the police were involved more with people afterward, helping them more and in a lot of the time, making their lives better,” Smaill said of his motivation behind becoming a police officer.
He’s carried that motivation throughout his career by emphasizing community involvement as well as law enforcement.
During his time with the coastal police unit based in Prince Rupert, Smaill and other officers travelled by boat up and down the coast, spending eight days at a time at isolated coastal villages.
During his off-duty hours, he’d attend cultural events and play basketball with young people.
“They are very welcoming communities,” said Smaill of the coastal villages. “They really want to work with the police to make their communities safer.”
Smaill has the aim of continuing the emphasis on community policing as a detachment priority when he meets with the District of Houston council to set goals for the next year.
Prevention programs such as one for young people called DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) rank high on his list.
“That’s very important,” said Smaill of DARE as it also provides the opportunity for officers to visit schools and build community relationships. “Often it’s just the ability to say ‘hi’.”
Officers will also be working on other kinds of prevention programs — focusing on prolific offenders who are active in property thefts and similar crimes.
Often, said Smaill, officers encounter people living a criminal lifestyle who have mental health and addictions issues.
“We’ve had real success,” said Smaill of intervening to steer a person away from a criminal lifestyle. “Our officers will show real compassion in working with people, but they do have to show a willingness to change.”
He also credits the work of the detachment’s victim services staffer, Paul Batley, in connecting people to addictions mental health services.
Smaill did acknowledge that Houston has become a busier place for police as Coastal GasLink ramps up its natural gas pipeline project activity.
“But that’s to be expected. The more people, the more you are going to see of everything,” he said.