Building relationships with community members and making a positive impact are two things Taber Police Service Constable Christopher Nguyen says he focuses on.
In the past six months, Nguyen has received two recognitions for this work, first in December by being named Taber Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year and most recently by receiving the Blue Line Magazine Lifetime Achievement award. The veteran law enforcement officers jests that when you start to receive awards called “the lifetime achievement award” you start to wonder if you are really that old. However, he explains that anytime he receives any type of recognition he can not do so on his own merit because of the support system he has, including his wife and children, fellow officers and administration along with the community, has supported him get to this point and continues to support him.
Nguyen says he is extremely grateful for the opportunities he has had since starting his policing career in 2000 with the Blood Tribe Police Service. After a decade of serving the Blood Tribe he says that he and his wife wanted different opportunities for their growing family as the daily commute between Lethbridge to Standoff was taking up a lot of time.
“We wanted to relocate to a community where we actually lived and worked in the community. Taber was right off the bat one of those places that really stood out,” Nguyen says. “I just knew that the community and the police service would offer my family the opportunities that it has.”
As the School Resource Officer in Taber, Nguyen says he is able to have day-to-day interaction with students which helps build relationships with the youth. This contact he says helps develop and foster a positive relationship between the kids and law enforcement, which he hopes carries outside of the school year into the summer when he is back on patrol.
“Especially with what we are finding on social media today, it is really challenging for policing. It is disheartening for me to have seen that shift in media coverage, news and social media on how relationships with police in other parts of the world, North America especially, have been so negative.”
“I am trying my best to show my community that what you are seeing is not representative of the majority of police officers. I tell this to the kids all the time, you know nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop and if you ever have any concerns or a negative interaction, please come let us know, we want to deal with it right away so you have that trust and that faith in your law enforcement.”
He explains that he tries to emphasize that the police are not here to be overseers or impose our authority, but rather be ambassadors of humanity. He says this is something that he sincerely believes and not just notes that keeps around “to try to give the police a positive take.”
Nguyn says his family’s history of having escaped Vietnam before he was born, and coming from a situation where liberties, rights, and freedoms were not recognized or afforded to every person has played a part in making him who he is today. He explains, knowing that his parents struggled to fight for those rights, with his father having even been imprisoned for it, to then seize the opportunity and “risk life and limb” so he and his sister could grow up in a country that allows those freedoms has made him who he is today. Adding it also is why instilled the desire to serve others in him.