From being told police don't hire women to being named second in command of Greater Sudbury Police, Sheilah Weber has witnessed a sea change in policing in the 35 years since she graduated from Cambrian College's law and security program.
On Dec. 19, 2018, GSPS announced that Weber had been selected to replace Al Lekun as the city's deputy police chief. She's the first woman in the city's history to hold that position. She started her new job on Jan. 17, when she was officially sworn in.
Sitting in her office at the service's Brady Street headquarters, Weber doesn't want to say which police service told her she need not apply way back in 1984, but says Sudbury was hiring women at the time.
“I don't want to say which one — I don't think it's fair,” she said Tuesday. “I think it was a different time back then and you know, we've come a long way, right?”
Undeterred, the Walden native ended up moving to Elliot Lake, where she took security jobs — at the hospital, at local stores — and she did some private investigation work.
And she waited for the world to turn a little bit, for resistance to the idea of women in policing to crumble. Opportunity came four years later, when she began her policing career in Elliot Lake.
It was a small force, Weber says, but one where she had opportunities that maybe wouldn't have been available in a large community.
“I've been very lucky,” she said. “Some people say you work hard and good things come to you, but because of the work I did in Elliot Lake, it being a small organization in a small town, you do all your own investigations.”
When she applied to work in Sudbury in 1997, she already had experience in dealing with a range of crimes, from domestic violence to murder investigations.
“I specialized in sexual assaults and child abuse cases, and I also was able to receive a lot of training,” she said. “So I was only in uniform in Sudbury for three or four months and then I went to the criminal investigation branch.”
As Sudburians of a certain age will remember, that meant Weber was a new criminal investigator when one of the most sensational crimes in the city's history took place — the Jan. 27, 1998, murder of Renee Sweeney.
Weber admits she gave up hope that an arrest in the case would ever happen, and was as shocked as anyone when murder charges were laid in December.
“It was pretty powerful,” Weber said, of the arrest. “I spent a lot of time working on that case, and Renee's family lived in very close proximity to me. Every day when I would go to work, I used to see her mom and her stepdad. They have both passed now, but it was a reminder, right?
“It took me a long time to talk about it ... You put a lot of yourself into solving major investigations, solving homicides, and you always want justice for the family. You feel for what they're going through.”
She was promoted to sergeant in the criminal investigations unit, running major crime investigations, working on homicide cases, working with police in other jurisdictions to co-ordinate investigations.
The period from 1998-2019 saw major changes to the way society operates, with attitudes towards women, people of different genders and First Nations radically changing. On the policing front, the 'crime happens, arrest criminal' approach was evolving toward a broader, prevention-oriented approach. It was an evolution that played to Weber's strengths.
“What I found is there were so many things I was able to do that potentially somebody gruff and rough might not have been,” she said. “From being able to get confessions from murderers, to being able to sit beside a young four-year-old girl for a whole day while we're waiting for family members to come in after her parents have been killed in a plane crash.
“Or being able to be compassionate, sitting with a domestic violence victim who has been, you know, brutally beaten by her husband and offering support. Special types of people are needed to do that, but you don't need to be a gruff male. You could be, if you could relate to the person, but you don't need to be. So much of what we do isn't arresting the bad guys, it's helping the victims.”
And policing in Sudbury underwent a paradigm shift in the way they deal with groups traditionally hostile to law enforcement. For example, rather than arresting prostitutes, police spend a lot more time talking about human trafficking and the people who get trapped in that life.
First Nations are over-represented in the criminal justice system, and Sudbury police have made several connections with the local community in hopes of fostering better relations and understanding.
“One of the things that we do is we educate our members, so they know about residential schools, they know about the 1960s scoop,” Weber said. “Our members realize the injustices that have happened over the years, dating back many, many years, to the Indigenous community. And in the last two years we had provided supervisory chain training to all our supervisors, all our civilian managers.”
A practical success of the new police approach was seen in the Louie Street area a few years ago, where crime plunged after police opened a storefront in the area, helping with programs and earning trust.
That trust led to tips about criminal activity, and certain troublesome groups ended up in jail. Emergency calls to police dropped from several a day to a handful a month.
“The role of policing is changing and our service delivery model has changed,” Weber said. “It's about engaging leaders across the city to help support community safety – and realizing that police alone can't do it. You need a collaborative effort.
“We know it's important to build relationships with the communities we serve, all the diverse communities. We need public trust and confidence for us to be able to do our job.”
The way police take care of themselves has changed too, Weber said. PTSD is always a danger, and staff are encouraged to address the issues, rather than suffer in silence, as in the past.
“Taking care of the well-being of our members is as important as advancing community safety,” she said.
Weber is proud to see how her profession has changed, from her rejection in 1984, to seeing 120 women and girls come out for a recent information night about careers in policing.
“Our organization has done a lot to try and advance that,” she said. “We had female officers from various divisions — criminal investigation branch, forensic unit, our Aboriginal liaison officer — a number of areas, including front line patrol.
“Afterwards one young girl came up to me and she was so excited. You know, we're making a difference. We really are.”
