The Town of Crossfield welcomed Cst. Jarom Leafloor as their new enhanced RCMP officer in November 2021, and he has been busy getting to know the members of the community in the months since.
“I'll be out in the community, I'll be at different events, and getting to know the people here,” he said. “I have a little office at the fire hall in Crossfield, [so people are] more than welcome to stop in and say hi, or drop me an email, or give me a call and hopefully I have more people reaching out.”
Some locals have already connected with Leafloor and together with the Town bylaw officer, he has been able to tackle some of the emerging issues and concerns in Crossfield.
“[Trevor Stevens, the community police officer,] and I have worked together on a few things already, like a check stop night a few weeks ago, where we did a whole bunch of alcohol testing,” he said.
Most concerns brought to Leafloor’s attention are typical problems seen across Alberta and Canada, he said, including property crime and traffic safety.
“Nobody likes to have their things taken and nobody likes to try to enjoy their evening and have somebody ripping around their house making the neighbourhood unsafe,” he said.
Besides the typical small-town policing issues, Leafloor sees Crossfield as a fairly safe and nice place to live, and hopes to help keep it that way.
He’s focused on educating people on typical criminal activity like break-and-enters, thefts from vehicles, vehicle thefts, elders being targeted for fraud, issues seen in schools like bullying, and the potential risk of internet exploitation.
He plans to speak to students at Crossfield's two schools and has already connected with seniors at the Rocky View Lodge retirement living home.
“If I can get into the community and educate people about how to keep their property safe and if we can get out in front of some of these things before they happen and cancel victims from happening, that's what I'm trying to do,” Leafloor said.
Leafloor joined the RCMP in 2005, after working in the hotel industry for about five years.
He viewed the RCMP as a great opportunity to be around people and help others, as well as a stable, secure job to support his family.
After becoming an RCMP officer, Leafloor’s policing career brought him to the Alberta communities of High Level, Foremost, Bow Island, and most recently to Airdrie.
His career has all been in front-line, general duty policing, and he added that the job has exposed him to a variety of experiences.
While working at his first post in High Level, he experienced the culture of northern remote policing and met many people involved in logging or the oil and gas industry.
In the farming community of Foremost in southeast Alberta, he was exposed to living in a small town of about 500 people. He said he quickly learned every resident in a small farming town works more than their fair share of volunteer hours as they don’t have the same level of services as cities do.
In 2016, he was transferred to Airdrie and has been living there ever since.
“I've attended every type of investigation from murders to simple phone calls of people wanting advice on different things,” he said of his past 17 years of experience.
He added that he likes the variety of duties that comes with the job and the variety of calls he handles.
In Crossfield, he looks forward to continuing to respond to different calls and working with the community and schools as a community liaison.
“I’m also just in town to supplement some of the traffic safety stuff. I'm still on the street and patrolling and writing the odd ticket and things like that,” he said.
Leafloor emphasized that he has an open invitation for people to contact him and would love to be part of any community groups if residents think he could be of value. The best way to reach Leafloor is through his email at [email protected]
