On Thursday, Insp. Phil Eastwood will leave the New Westminster Police Department for the last time, closing the door on a 27-year career with the local department and more than 30 years as a police officer.
“How do you wrap 35 years up into a conversation?” he asked when the Record stopped by his office last week to conduct its final interview with the local police inspector.
Eastwood began his career in 1980 with the London Metropolitan Police, a department of more than 35,000 officers. The Englishman spent most of his eight years with the department walking his beat, he didn’t drive a patrol car and he didn’t fire a gun. His time with the London police department was very much about making connections with residents and helping them through tough times, he said.
“It’s essentially dealing with people. So it’s all about being able to build relationships and communicate with people,” Eastwood said.
After eight years with the London Metropolitan Police, Eastwood moved to the Lower Mainland with his wife, at the time, Colleen. When he arrived, he knew he wanted to continue with policing, and in February 1988, Eastwood was hired as a constable with the New Westminster Police Department.
Since then he’s taken on many different roles within the department, everything from patrol to watch commander to community policing and victim assistance.
Here’s what he had to say about his time in New Westminster, and what he plans on doing after he retires.
Q&A
Why New Westminster?
I ended up in New Westminster only because it was the only police department, at the time, that would allow you to apply to them if you had a landed immigrant status. Everywhere else you needed to be a Canadian citizen, and, of course, that takes three years to go through the citizenship process. So in order to start the application, the only place I actually put an application in was here, and fortunately I was one of the successful candidates at the time and was hired on.
Was it challenging integrating into the community after your move from England?
I found it very easy actually. Being known as the Royal City, … I found there was a great deal of pretty easy connections that I was able to make here. … I think the biggest challenge for me was I’d never touched a firearm over in England, and here, I remember, at the first day at the firing range the firearms instructor was handing out your notebook, your pen and, by the way, here’s a Smith & Wesson .38, like it was nothing, and … I just stared at this box on the table with these big eyes I think, while everyone else was diving in excitedly.
Were there any other surprises you didn’t expect in policing in New West?
No. It’s really about the ability to build relationships and I hope if people were to be asked about what they remember about Phil Eastwood and his time here it would be the fact that I always tried to treat people fairly, that I always tried to look at things from other people’s perspectives, that I was professional, polite, hopefully approachable, reasonable to deal with, and … that’s not only the community or the victims or the witnesses or even the suspects or even the accused that we deal with, but also the people inside the organization as well. That’s something I hope I will be remembered for, if they remember me. I could just be that guy with the accent who couldn’t drive and couldn’t shoot.
What is your most memorable moment from your policing career?
One of the lingering memories I have is not really a call, it’s an event. When the torch relay came here, in the Olympics for 2010 in February, I was lucky enough, in that role that I had at the time, to be the incident commander for the flame ceremony in Queen’s Park. That was something that I really enjoyed being a part of and participating in, and the city was so proud to host the celebration here and I got to be involved and meet, in a different level, many, many community members and many members of the city itself in different roles that they had on the organizing committee that we had.
Do you agree with people who say New Westminster Police Department is more than a police department?
Absolutely, it’s really like a family here, it really is. But when you’re looking at it from the outside … it may not look like that, it may just look like another police department but when you actually see, experience and feel how people interact with each other here, and how they really feel that this is home, it is very much, not only a family, but it’s a community into its own, and that’s something, I think, New Westminster can be proud of. It’s something pretty unique, it’s something pretty special.
Looking back, was being a police officer in New West everything you expected it to be?
(My expectations) were exceeded. I’d already spent time as a police officer before and I certainly didn’t know any police officers in Canada, I just knew I enjoyed the role, I knew I was good at it. I’d had a rewarding career in London and I felt I had something to offer. … I think, as I have matured and got older, I realize that policing is essentially about relationship building and that’s maybe what you don’t get from the media on television about what policing is really about. The Rookie Blue and all the other shows that we have on various police, it’s something completely different once you get here and, I think, if we can attract those individuals that really want to make a difference and really get the fact that they want to make a difference via relationship building, I think the legacy of New Westminster’s police department will be long-lasting on the community members here.
Where would you like to see the New Westminster Police Department go from here?
I think the department is moving in exactly the direction it needs to move in, and the fact that there’s been a great deal of thought given to succession planning in the organization at all different levels, the city and the community can look at this place and think they’re in good hands.
What’s next for you?
Well, I’ve always had an interest in training. I was fortunate enough to be supported by the organization in schooling, so I was able to do a master’s in leadership and training out of Royal Roads University a dozen or so years ago, and we, myself and my wife Karen, have sort of built a training and consulting company specializing in respectful workplace training and work violence prevention training.
Is this the last we’ve heard of Insp. Phil Eastwood?
I’m not sure. I’m certainly hoping that the people will be aware of what I’m going to be doing post-policing. I also owe a great debt of gratitude to the organization and if there’s a way, sometime in the future, I can pay that back a little I would certainly be happy to do so. I have many friends here, so I’m sure April 30 won’t be the last time I come by a sign saying, ‘Welcome to New Westminster.’
