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Pa ge 2 4 T hu rs da y, Ja nu ar y 14 , 2 01 6 - T he IF P - H al to n H ill s - w w w .th ei fp .c a SATURDAY, JANUARY 16th at 7:30 PM GEORGETOWN RAIDERS vs BURLINGTON COUGARS $1 From every ticket sold will be donated to Canadian Tire Jumpstart to help local kids get in the game. * Cash & coupon donations will also be accepted * In Canada 1 in 3 families cannot afford to enroll their kids in organized sports. Find out if your child qualifies @ http://jumpstart.canadiantire.ca COMMUNITY The twists and turns in the life of a RCMP officer fascinates CFUW audience "Life can change permanently or end in an instant, without warn- ing, no second chances," Barbara Redford told a packed audience at Halton Hills Public Library. If anyone should know the truth behind this sentiment, it's Redford, considering she's almost died twice in the line of duty. The RCMP veteran shared her riveting tales and words of wis- dom last week with local residents brought together by the Canadian Federation of University Women. Redford, who's also the presi- dent of the Halton Hills Camera Club, took the crowd on a journey through her career with the RCMP that has spanned almost two de- cades, including crime scene in- vestigation and her more recent move into anti-terrorism. She got her start in the field in Manitoba, where RCMP officers are contracted to perform general duties. It was there that she real- ized she didn't want to be a front- line officer. "I started at the age of 30, and by 35 I'd almost died twice," she said. Her first brush with death came on a spousal assault call, which she said are one of the most dan- gerous types of calls an officer can respond to. As she was trying to arrest the male at the scene, the female in- volved in the situation turned on Redford and hit her over the head with a cast iron frying pan. "I thought that was close, may- be I don't want to do this any- more," she said. But she persevered and ended up in another scary situation, this time with an impaired driver. "I pulled him over and realized this was his fifth impaired driving charge," she said. "He was deter- mined that he was not going to jail, and I ended up fighting with this fellow on the side of the road for 15 minutes waiting for my back up." The altercation landed Redford in the hospital for two weeks as she recovered from numerous injuries. Fortunately for Redford, she soon discovered her passion for crime scene investigation and photography, which opened up a safer avenue of policing. "I really like figuring out the puzzles of how things work, and in forensics that's what you're doing," she said. Following three months of in- tensive training in Ottawa, Redford was able to become a forensics of- ficer and foster her skills in techni- cal photography. "I have to tell the story of what happened at a crime scene, and the photos I take are going to tell that story," she said. "And re- ally, that's what photography is all about is telling a story." But a big part of that story in the forensics field is death. In her third year on the job, Manitoba was faced with the most homicides it had ever experienced. "In my file load alone I had 36 homicides that year. Unfortu- nately all of them were aboriginal reserve calls," she said. "I went to a lot of calls where there were deaths for no reason. I went to calls where sons killed fathers over the last beer. I couldn't wrap my head around a lot of them. They're senseless deaths that didn't need to happen." As she struggled to cope, anoth- er call came in that pushed Red- ford over the edge. It involved the death of a young child who passed away after being chained in her basement, abused and starved by her mother and boyfriend. By Melanie Hennessey Special to The IFP Halton Hills Camera Club president Barbara Redford speaks about her extensive work with the RCMP at a recent Canadian Federation of University Women gathering at the Halton Hills Public Library. Photo by Melanie Hennessey Continued on page 25