*Please note that the video was filmed in 2018 before COVID*
He puts on his uniform every morning with enthusiasm
“I like to work, it keeps me busy,” says the 69-year-old officer with a lively spring in his step. “Forty years seems like a lifetime, but it has gone by in a flash…every year has been quicker than the one before.”
On April 21, Cassells celebrated 40 years of service with the EPS, but retirement isn’t really on his horizon just yet, he proclaims.
Cassells returned to Patrol in NE Division in the summer of 2020, after working with the Crime Suppression Team from 2015 to 2019, and a few months with the Divisional traffic team and at the front counter.
“The main reason why I choose to be in Patrol is that you get to do a little bit of everything, and you keep in tune with everything that needs to be done in relation to the law.”
Veteran patrol officers also pass on crucial experience and skills to new hires, which is valuable and important, says Cassells.
“In the 90’s in Downtown Division we almost had a bit of brain drain when we had so many experienced members leave and retire.”
Having served in the military for six years after joining at the young age of 17 gave Cassells some of the skills he would need in policing. Growing up on a family farm, and spending four years as a steel worker, instilled a hard-worker ethic that still defines his approach to his career to this day.
In 2008, Cassells received the National Award of Excellence from the Canadian Police Association and an EPS Medal of Valour in 2009, for helping save the life of a colleague who had been shot by a suspect while the three officers were responding to a call on June 30, 2006. In 2012, he was recognized as Patrol Officer of the Year.
When asked, what is the one piece of advice he would give to new officers starting out on the job, he mentions a term used in the military called, max flex.
“You have to adapt, and change based on the situation,” he explains. “Everything must be done one step at a time, and you must play-things by ear.”
When not donning his uniform with pride, Cassells is a busy dad to his soccer-playing 15-year-old son which he and his wife home school. The former runner and martial arts enthusiast also enjoys taking care of his home and yard.