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The 50th Anniversary of the Tactics and Rescue Unit (TRU)
October 10, 2025

Celebration held

Friday October 3rd, 2025, saw the kick-off of the weekend long celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the OPP TRU. An incredible group of volunteers led by retired OPP D/Sgt. Craig Bridgeman – himself an “inactive” member of the then Belleville TRU team, put together a wonderful reunion of active and inactive members from across the country. The event was held at Casino Rama.


I attended the event and was thrilled to see many old friends and at the same time sad that some long-time friends were not in attendance due to their passing over the years. Despite the great turnout, a large number of veterans did not attend for whatever reason, and most of the serving members were committed to operations in West and North East Regions on the weekend. While we prayed for their safety, we reminisced about the many dangerous calls we had attended – either as individual teams, or multiple team calls, and a few significant operations that involved every TRU member in the province.


It was great to see the majority of the members that were trained and became part of the original TRU in 1975 in attendance. All wonderful officers. The initial team was formed to assist in the OPP security efforts required at events in eastern Ontario, as part of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Following that endeavor, five teams of five members each were formed and placed in London, North Bay, Thunder Bay, Perth and Downsview.


Unfortunately, the original TRU Coordinator, retired Inspector Andy Maksmchuk, who authored a book on TRU, entitled TRU (Tactics and Rescue Unit): The Last Resort in Policing, A Memoir, could not attend the Anniversary due to flight scheduling challenges. Andy could’ve easily provided details of the forming of TRU and its early years of operations.


Although I had the pleasure of speaking at the Saturday night banquet, as did current OPP Commissioner Tom Carrique, who proudly supports TRU and the other programs within Field Support Bureau. I didn’t have to time to sufficiently walk through time from my perspective as an active member and as the Bureau Commander that oversaw TRU, let alone try and fill in the gaps before my arrival. However, the following is a summary of the years I was part of the TRU program.


I attended my initial TRU training at Camp Borden in June 1981, following extensive physical and psychological testing in the Toronto area. Even though I was in reasonable physical condition when I arrived at Camp Borden, it was some of the toughest training I ever participated in. I left there at 155 lbs., my lowest weight since high school and for the decades since!


The instructors that put us through the mill, while running, climbing, crawling and hiking every arduous mile with us, taught us skills that I had never dreamed of acquiring. Not all of our group graduated, but those that did left with advanced proficiency with all the TRU weaponry, self-defense, various tactics and related skills including cover and concealment, rappelling and much more. Instructors there like the legendary Harry Bell, became Gods to me. I strived to be at least half as good as they were.


At that time there were six teams of six officers, stationed in London, Mount Forest, Barrie, Perth, North Bay and Thunder Bay. I was happy to transfer from my northern post to any of those locations but was glad to be assigned to the London team.


The London guys welcomed me with open arms. We largely became life-long friends, at the same time pulling together as a highly-skilled team of tactical officers. We had a challenging call the first week that I was in London, with a number of shots fired before and after our arrival on-scene and before we successfully arrested the gunman. I thought, “Man, this is going to be fun.”


We trained as a team 5 days of every month and were given an hour of every workday to run or work out as individuals. Every fall and spring, we travelled to Camp Borden and met the other five teams for three weeks. We jointly reviewed recent calls and lessons learned, did joint training and ran scenarios day and night. Those were great sessions – hard work and lots of camaraderie. Several senior TRU members from the other teams became heroes to me. Harry Bell, Wayne Pickett, Peter Hrycyshyn, Dave Douglas, Ed Sherwin, my own Team Leader Rick Deering and more. I wanted to be just like them when I grew up! They taught me all the skills I never thought I’d be capable of, as well as how to be a good team member. They also unknowingly taught me a lot about people and about leadership.


When not training or away on calls, we worked in two-man cars on day and afternoon shifts and backed up detachment officers wherever we could. But our main role was to be immediately available to respond to occurrences involving violence, anywhere within the then #2 District, or beyond. If a TRU call did emerge, at least we’d have two officers quickly on scene to help contain it, gather information and prepare for the arrival of the rest of the team. Detachment members loved it when we helped them with occurrences or took calls for them, but some were bitter that we were often away on training or operations. We still tried our best to be helpful when we were around and to have good relations with our fellow OPP members.


London was a busy team. Lots of barricaded person calls, hostage situations, high-risk search warrants with the OPP Drug Enforcement Teams, biker activity, witness protection ops, backing up our Canine Teams tracking bad guys, doing large crime scene searches, VIP protection and more. In 1984, providing security to both Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth, at various locations in Ontario.


It was the best of times and the worst of times. The successful calls were a huge adrenaline rush and involved lots of back-slapping and high-fives. The occasional call didn’t go as well as we hoped when we couldn’t locate a suspect, or murder victims’ bodies were found (although it was our goal to find a body, it was still a sad event when we did); or lives were taken – bad guys, or occasionally a good guy. But we did it all as a team, collectively learned and moved forward. We celebrated the good times, supported one another in the tougher times – on duty and off, and learned from each other every day.


When I became Team Leader in 1985, I found myself “supervising” a great bunch of men. I knew all of their strengths, their weaknesses, their team relationships and their personal goals. I knew their families and they knew mine. They never required inspiration or motivation from me and seldom did they need a gentle kick in the ass. It was like a team of racehorses that couldn’t wait to hear the bell. If anything, I had to slow them down on occasion. But I knew every one of them would take a bullet for me as I would for them.


In 1986, the six teams were amalgamated into three teams of twelve, situated in London, Barrie and Belleville (now Odessa). It was long overdue. Six men responding to an armed man in a house or manhunt in the bush, was never enough. Sometimes we only had four or five members, depending on courses, court, vacation etc., and often, the District Commander of the day was not open to requesting the Mount Forest team to back us up. It was ridiculously dangerous, but we did what we could because that was our job. We would never leave the detachment officers on the ground without giving them all the help we could.


Interestingly and sadly, when we responded to two cop killers in a house in Woodstock in the fall of 1984, we had four TRU members and one spare officer who was fully trained and waiting for an opening on a team to be transferred to. He was a good man. We placed him in the spot we felt he would be least likely to get into a gun fight and unfortunately it turned out to be THE spot. Before it was over, two officers were shot, one fatally and a bad guy was shot and killed. It was a mess. A couple of days later we were told that the bullet that killed Constable Jack Ross was fired from a TRU machine gun. It was the darkest day in TRU history up till that point and perhaps ever.


The news destroyed our member and devastated us all. It damaged OPP colleagues’ confidence in TRU across the province. It was virtually impossible to explain all the details and intricacies to the world so they could better understand the situation we were faced with. But I will say that if I was faced with the same initial briefing details, radio traffic information, lighting, shadows and other circumstances that our member was faced with at the time he fired those shots, I probably would have done the exact same thing. Many things had gone seriously wrong before the gunfight began and then everything came together in a perfect storm, unfortunately.


So, the increase in team strength in 1986 was a welcome change. It did however leave much of northern Ontario without TRU and the OPP has struggled since to provide tactical officers to the north in a timely way.


In all the sixteen different jobs I had in in my 36-year career, I worked with some great people and made good friends. But TRU was undoubtedly the hardest job to leave. Walking away from not just colleagues but amazing friends was difficult for me. But in 1987, I transferred into the Investigations Division at General Headquarters in Toronto and I was gone.


If I got wind of any TRU call happening in the coming years, I’d I watch it like a hawk from afar, always worried about the guys. I certainly kept close contact with a few of the London boys that I had worked so closely with over the years. TRU continued to support uniformed and investigative personnel and save lives in the years to follow. Their equipment, training and tactics evolved so far above and beyond what I had known it was amazing. People like the late Wade Lacroix and Brian Deevy were a significant part of that progress, as were many others to come. Training changed, selection processes were enhanced and the firearms and equipment improved greatly with time. TRU got better and better at doing what they already did so well.


In late 1997, I was promoted to Superintendent and placed in-charge of a brand-new OPP Bureau that would eventually be called Emergency Management Bureau (EMB). EMB was to oversee the TRU, ERT, Incident Command, Crisis Negotiation, USRU and EDU programs, as well as Emergency Planning, but not the team members themselves. We were Like Generals without an army. All the teams, sections and units’ members would report to the Regions and some to the OPP Academy.


I brought Brian Deevy in from Barrie TRU as an Inspector to oversee all of TRU as well as the Incident Command program. He oversaw full reviews into both programs. When I picked Brian for the job, I received accusations of just bringing in my “buddy.” When I asked the whiners to “name someone with more experience and credibility in TRU”, the whining ended. Before it was over our capable team reviewed and renewed every program to some extent..


When all the various reviews were complete, Commissioner’s Committee approved several important recommendations, one being that the three TRU teams would all become “provincial assets” rather than be part of three individual regions. Some Regions had historically treated TRU better than others, and in some cases training, staffing, budget and equipment issues fell to the whim of command staff, some of whom had other priorities to fund. Some teams had equipment that others didn’t, etc. We lacked consistency in several areas across the teams, so we recommended that everything be moved under EMB, with strong links to the OPP Academy for training coordination and record keeping purposes. All our recommendations were approved, substantial changes were made in many sections and for the decades that followed and the foreseeable future, TRU will belong to what is now Field Support Bureau. They have been effectively managed and supported by successive Bureau Commanders since. Their current Commander, Chief Superintendent Dana Earley, spoke at the banquet and very capably commands the FSB.


To all that attended the Anniversary and those that served but couldn’t attend; to all the serving members that were committed to ongoing TRU operations that weekend; and to the many TRU members that left us way too soon, thank you. Thank you for serving the OPP and thank you for working hard to become a member of TRU.


Thank you for bravely saving lives, for protecting our frontline members and investigators. Thank you for all you gave and continue to give – physically and emotionally. Thank you to those that supported and taught me in so many ways since 1981 – at all levels, including right up until I was Commissioner. I’ve never stopped learning from you and you continue to make me proud.


And lastly, never forget that there are no ex-members of TRU. TRU is comprised of ACTIVE and INACTIVE members, but they are all “members of TRU.” I am proudly an Inactive member for life.

 

 

Leadership involves risk, especially in policing

By Chris Lewis • March 28, 2026
Leadership is inundated with risk, every hour of every day, in all sectors. In policing, legislative authorities and established policy are the ever-present guideposts, but occasionally policy just doesn’t apply. At times someone has to just make a decision to do something, or not, or they will fail the public they serve and the personnel it is their duty to lead. If it goes bad, time to own up, do damage control, learn from it and move forward. It always frightened me when I saw some at the senior executive level in policing think that supervisors and managers operate in a pristine little bubble where nothing should ever go wrong. Then when it did because some supervisor tried their best to make something work for all the right reasons, they wanted to pigeon-hole the person that took the risk. There were times during my own career when executives were not encouraged to take any risk either. In fact, taking risk was career risk in itself. Despite the best of intentions, if it went bad, the one ‘responsible’ be forever labelled as having failed. Even if the gamble went well, the jaundiced eyes from above would still forever look at them as being a potential liability. It became the “Oh, him. He’s the one that...” At times the daily decision making of high-level commanders would be second-guessed by those in the executive suites – some of whom had never really commanded anything. My buddy retired Chief Wayne Frechette used to describe these folks as: “They’ve never been out after dark on company time.” I know this same concept was alive in many other police services. Some at executive levels actually did serve in operational roles at some point but they never took a risk. Somehow, they were fortunate to skate through difficult situations through sheer luck as opposed to good decision-making and never developed any scar tissue along the way. They didn’t learn from failure – they survived by luck. They also were viewed by weak executives above them as being golden because there was never a milli-second of negativity around them. They were Teflon. But those that worked under their “command” (for lack of a better word) had no respect for them. They simply watched them walk around with coffee in hand, never leaving the office or making a decision. It wasn’t leadership, but it did pave the way to stardom from on high, for some. True leaders do take risks at times. Many I worked with and for did it all and did it well. They did so in the best interests of those they served and those they led, because it wasn’t about themselves, but was done in the service of those that placed their trust in them. Policy simply doesn’t fit every situation. It is most often a guide that anticipates most circumstances that employees will face, particularly the more common (high-frequency) ones. But it cannot predict every possible scenario. When that happens in policing, it can occur in very unlikely situations (low-frequency) that are incredibly high-risk. Supervisors cannot say “Sorry folks, the book doesn’t cover this one” and run away crying. They also don’t have time to tell bad guys, “Hey big fella, sit tight. We need to take a pause here and get the whiteboard out so we can have a group-think about how to stop your murderous rampage.” I think that many pseudo-leaders – far too many, are afraid to make risky decisions out of fear that an error will jeopardize their career. Instead, they risk their careers by not making decisions. Or as I like to say: “their fear of career-risk, risks their careers.” This can be fatal in the policing world. When a police supervisor shirks their responsibilities or quivers, sucks their thumb, and prays for the situation to go away, thankfully constables will come forward and do their best to get their teammates through it. Sometimes that ends well and when the supervisor emerges from their fear-induced coma, they will more often than not take credit for the success. But when the situation goes to hell-in-a-handbasket – despite best efforts, the pseudo-leader will document the risk-taking employee and add another bullet-point to their list of things they’ve done to “hold people accountable.” The panel at their next promotional interview will likely hear the false rendition proudly told. I hear examples of this practise from serving police officers across North America on a much too frequent basis. True leaders develop a culture of trust among those they lead that their suggestions and feedback are encouraged and valued. Their confidence that the leader wants their input encourages them to constantly analyze situations and give thought to what policy says and the options available when policy says nothing. That is good for the employee’s development and may save the leader’s hind-end and the continuity of the team on occasion when an employee steps forward in a crisis. Having said that, there will clearly be situations where there isn’t time for the whiteboard, and a decision needs to be made by the responsible “leader.” When it doesn’t work out, the real leader will step forward and be accountable. But when it does go well, the true leader will allow the light to shine on the team they have the honour to lead. In my view, we’re not seeing enough of that in North American policing. We need more genuine leaders at all levels of law enforcement organizations. Developing and promoting real leaders that can manage risk effectively is a must. Anything less fails everyone.

Why Joint Forces Operations Are No Longer Optional

By Chris Lewis • March 26, 2026
They used to be simply a "nice to have."

Police investigating police: Is there another option?

By Chris Lewis • March 18, 2026
The March 17 th announcement by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) regarding the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) investigation into allegations by an Ontario Justice that three TPS officers colluded and lied during a 2024 murder trial against a man that ran over and killed TPS Constable Jeffrey Northrup in 2021, has further inflamed the debate over who should investigate alleged police wrongdoing. This instance combined with the recent arrests and ongoing police investigation into several TPS officers for their alleged involvement with organized crime, has brought this discussion to a boiling point. I appreciate the public perceptions around this investigative model given that the average citizen doesn’t necessarily understand the professionalism and commitment of police investigative teams like the recent OPP Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) group. I have all the confidence the world in that team, but I also personally know the ability and integrity of the OPP Detective Inspector in-charge. So, if these investigations aren’t carried out by police, who will do them? They do not fall under the mandate of the Ontario Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which by the way is largely comprised of former police criminal investigators and forensic identification experts, many of whom investigated homicides in police services. For SIU to assume a larger role, they would have to grow exponentially and expand their team of ‘former cops’. These cases generally do not fall under the purview of Ontario’s Inspectorate of Policing either. They would loosely fall under the oversight role of Ontario’s Law Enforcement Complaints Agency (LECA), who is responsible for receiving, managing and overseeing public complaints against police, but frankly they don’t have mandate or the horsepower to conduct complex criminal investigations. They oversee the “public complaints” that may lead to a criminal investigation, but the investigation would be the responsibility of a police service to conduct. An expansion of the LECA would require a tremendous amount of funding and human resources, most of whom would also be former police officers. Hiring and training civilians to conduct such investigations is an option, but largely an incomprehensible one. Police criminal investigators are trained officers that generally start out as uniformed officers responding to occurrences and investigating more routine and less serious crimes, i.e. minor assaults and property crimes. They build investigative expertise over time, including in interviewing and interrogation; gathering and securing physical evidence; legal processes like obtaining judicial authorizations; presenting evidence in court; and various investigative strategies. They learn how to work with special police units that provide specific investigative skills, and more. All of this doesn’t happen overnight, but over a period of years and with the tutelage of more experienced investigators along that journey. Trying to turn a group of young and well-educated civilians – no matter how intelligent and well-intended, into a team of elite investigators, would be a complete disaster and unfair to the public or to the officers being investigated. Over my many years as a member or as the Director of the OPP CIB, my colleagues and I investigated criminal allegations against cops from other agencies. Before the SIU was formed, we investigated officers from many Ontario police services – large and small, who had used deadly force. Many were cleared and a number were arrested and charged. We also investigated criminal allegations against police chiefs in Ontario. Again, several were appropriately cleared, and some were brought before the courts. Municipal, provincial and federal elected officials were similarly investigated and some charged. Our members also investigated police officers in other provinces, including high-ranking ones. I personally investigated two Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers that were involved in an arrest that result in the death of a suspect. They were properly exonerated, but I would have charged them in a heartbeat if they had wrongfully killed than man. I arrested an OPP Sergeant for sexual assault. A CIB colleague investigated and arrested two different OPP officers for criminal offences. Both of those officers had been personal friends of mine and years later committed suicide. There are tons of similar examples that I can refer to over my career. All of these involved the oversight and legal analysis of a Crown Attorney, sometimes from another province. The interesting thing, and what most of the anti-police folks will never believe, is that in every single one of those investigations, the dialogue that I was involved in with other officers that I worked with or supervised, involved doing what was right. In other words, “If the allegation is substantiated, we will put the case together, arrest them and put them before the courts.” Not even once, did we think about or do anything that would give an officer a pass when they committed a criminal offence. Never. I have every confidence in the world that the vast majority of municipal and RCMP colleagues across Canada would operate under the same guiding principle. Has the occasional officer worked in conflict with that approach? Undoubtedly. Were some investigators not as committed or capable as they should be and perhaps did a poor investigation accidentally or deliberately? Quite likely so. But I truly believe those cases are the exception, not the rule in criminal investigations. Where I more often believe poor investigations or deliberate attempts to inappropriately give a colleague a break continues to occur, is in Police Act investigations, where policy or employee harassment wrongdoings are suspected. I like to think that the focus on that continues to improve, but not fast enough in some cases. Sadly, I know now that unbeknownst to me at the time, it happened under my watch. A focus for my next article. The public and police deserve the very best of investigators to ensure that bad cops are effectively put out of business and good officers are cleared. If there’s another effective option that would appease the doubting public – aside from using current officers from other agencies or creating a new and costly entity that would be staffed by former police officers, I’d like to hear it.