Deputy Chief Martin Gaudet will tell anyone he’s wanted to be a police officer since he was six-years-old.
For 28 years, he’s put on his uniform and badge and went to work for the Fredericton Police Force and on Friday, he’ll be the leader of the organization he began with almost three decades ago.
“It’s been a professional bliss,” he said. “There have been a couple of years that have been difficult but those hard times, those scars, make us who we are.”
Gaudet, who joined the force on Feb. 20, 1995, is replacing Chief Roger Brown, who is retiring.
He hopes to build on the work that other chiefs have already done.
“There will be some re-alignments because of local government reform and the different types of challenges we will face,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.
“We need to grow, inevitably the city is going to grow, the police department has to grow and we have to be ready for that and we have to be nimble enough to go along with it.”
During his time with the force, he’s had many roles. Gaudet has worked in patrols, as a neighbourhood officer, in training and media, in the Office of Professional Standards, and as a staff sergeant in charge of special teams.
He was promoted to inspector in December 2013, at which time he also took over the role of Officer-in-Charge of the force’s Primary Response Team.
In May 2015, Gaudet was promoted to deputy chief of police.
Gaudet previously served as deputy chief under Leanne Fitch, who retired in 2019. He and Fitch saw the force through the August 2018 shooting, where two Fredericton police officers, Const. Robb Costello and Const. Sara Burns, were killed in the line-of-duty.
He said that was a particularly tough time to be a leader.
“Those difficult times come with the job,” he said. “Every job, every profession has a price. and policing is no different. Those difficult times give us scars and builds resilience and builds our character and makes us who we are in the future.”
Gaudet said Brown was the perfect person to have as the police chief as the force attempted to emerge from the tragic events in August 2018.
Gaudet will be the 15th chief to oversee the force of 137 members, including 109 officers.
“It’s pretty cool to part of history from that perspective but none of us are greater than the sum of our parts,” he said.
He has a few priorities.
“From a project perspective, I hope to start looking into the body camera project that we currently have, see if that can be expanded. The public safety and community cameras as well,” he said.
“The pandemic has changed how we do business and how we partner up with each other knowing we can’t do everything by ourselves.”
In recent months, the force has dealt with some difficult situations including a convoy protest. The force, under the leadership of Brown and Gaudet, were able to secure the city and prevent a blockade like what happened on Parliament Hill in January.
The force also made the largest drug bust in the force’s history back in April, which Gaudet and his members attributed to additional funding by the government and collaborative efforts between law enforcement agencies.
“We’re a small but might force and the results are here,” he said at the time.