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A 44-year policing career spanning six decades began with a young man’s commitment.
Barrie police Staff Sgt. Norm Meech, who officially retires at the end of the month, has been with the service just shy of 25 years and prior to that was a CN Police officer for more than 17 years. (And yes, they do carry sidearms.)
“I originally got into policing because I thought it was a noble profession,” Meech tells BarrieToday. “I wanted to help people and I believed in the justice system. Victims of crime needed police assistance and criminals had to be held accountable for their actions.”
At the ripe old age of 18, he was hired by Metropolitan Toronto Police as a cadet in the fall of 1976, right out of Oakwood Collegiate Institute in Toronto.
Perhaps too soon?
“I did take a year off from November 1978 to December 1979 trying to decide if I wanted to stay in the police profession,” he says. “Being 20 years old, although being paid well (about $10,000 a year), I struggled with working in a strict paramilitary organization and shift work. Who wants to work nights and weekends?”
But a future in policing remained. That December '79, he was hired by CN Police.
Meech says the service currently has about 85 officers across Canada and about 35 more in the United States. It is a private railroad, regulated police force responsible for protecting the property, personnel and rail infrastructure of Canadian National Railway. Its policing authority comes from the Railway Safety Act of Canada and its officers have authority to enforce the Criminal Code of Canada and all provincial offences.
The police veteran spent about nine years in CN’s patrol division in the GTA, driving a patrol car and working foot patrol in Union Station, as well as eight years in the criminal investigations branch working on cases throughout Ontario.
“Basically, it was the same as a municipal police service, but the volume of calls for service and work load is a lot less,” Meech says. “You are carrying use-of-force equipment, including a gun. CN Police regularly investigate break and enters, thefts, frauds, assaults and trespassing in relation to railroad property.
“There was a lot of joint and/or parallel investigations with municipal police services,” he adds. “I did enjoy working with CN Police. I developed my basic policing skills while working with them. But with anticipated downsizing and job security, I applied at Barrie Police Service.”
And in June 1997, he was hired on and quickly moved up the ranks, being promoted to sergeant in 2001, making supervisor in charge of the major crime unit in 2005, achieving the rank of staff sergeant in 2009 and, in 2014, he began supervising the homicide, forensic identification and technological crime units. He's currently in the professional standards unit, executive services division.
The soon-to-be officially retired officer hasn’t waited until his last day at Barrie police to start writing another chapter in his life.
Meech published his first book — The Trash Man Justice for All — in August 2019, a fictional murder mystery about a retired cop who reluctantly gets dragged into a murder investigation.
He expects the sequel, Murder at the River Street Mansion, to be published in the new year.
“As you know, police officers over the years gain a lot of policing experience and see a lot of unusual things,” Meech says. “I thought that I could use some of my experiences and write some fictional murder mysteries.
“Although I am an inexperienced author, I enjoy writing. I learned a lot about publishing with my first book that will help me with my second one.”
Barrie residents won’t recognize any local crime scenes, criminal characters or memorable investigations in his books after he put that in writing for his police superiors.
Besides fighting the bad guys, Meech says a big challenge for police over the years has been the ever-changing face of technology.
“I began my career using a typewriter to do reports, along with carbon paper for copies. And don't forget the ash trays on the desks and the smoking in the office that we used to be exposed to,” he says. “Homicide investigations went from 30 to 40 boxes of paperwork to using various data drives to manage large amounts of data.
“My first issued cellphone was in a shoulder bag that you carried with you,” Meech adds. “As the world advances in technology, police services still struggle to keep up.”
While he was assigned to the major crime and homicide units, Meech worked on a number of high-profile local cases including murders, unexpected deaths and even a plane crash in Kempenfelt Bay.
One case garnered national attention in July 2012 when police spent nearly two weeks in a north-end neighbourhood defusing a potentially explosive situation.
While a murder investigation was underway by the OPP, the Virgilwood Crescent homeowner turned himself into Barrie police, Meech says.
“A subsequent search by Barrie police at the Virgilwood home resulted in locating explosives, weapons and chemicals in a bunker,” he says. “There was an evacuation of approximately 55 nearby homes for a week. Numerous bombs were removed and detonated and we were assisted by OPP, RCMP, Toronto police and the Canadian Armed Forces.”
Meech also recalls the April Dobson shooting in October 2005. She was shot while sitting on the front porch of a Browning Trail home. A young male was seen riding away on a bicycle.
“This is still an open, unsolved homicide investigation. This case still bothers me that we were unable to make an arrest in it,” he says.
Two other high-profile cases were the Alexandra Flanagan murder and the Brandon Crisp missing-persons investigation, he adds.
“I really liked working in — and supervising — the homicide unit,” says the longtime police officer and author. “I believed that there was no greater honour than being responsible for investigating the death of a human being.”
