Prairie Five-0

PRAIRIE FIVE-0 encapsulates forty years of law enforcement in Western Canada. Former Medicine Hat Police Service Sergeant Dave Peskor relates the funny and sometimes amazingly absurd events he and his colleagues encountered as they strove to Serve and Protect.

It was my first day in a police uniform. I checked my look in the mirror. No time yet to have the shirt and pants tailored to properly fit my slim build, but they were clean and pressed with creases like razor blades. Hat on straight, but with an ever so slight angle for attitude, and leather Sam Browne duty belt polished to a shiny black. I was not quite twenty-three years old. I weighed in at one hundred and forty-seven and one-half pounds with a well trimmed moustache, the type we all grew at that age, believing it made us look older and more mature. When people later asked me why so many young cops sported moustaches, I used to say that they were issued in Cop School. I said that I had asked for a "pencil thin Latino-style moustache", but the Quartermaster said only the girls were allowed to wear those.

Then I stood in front of the mirror and did what so many had done before me. I drew my gun and checked out my reflection to see if I had the determined gaze that would make a criminal's blood run cold. I suppose there are those who will deny ever doing that when they first started their career. I think their credibility may be suspect. So, now I stand in front of the mirror to reflect on my career, and I have concluded it was a damn good ride.