Saskatoon Provincial Court has confirmed that a Redvers, Sk., man who was arrested in Saskatoon on Wednesday for impersonating a police officer is the same man who was posing as a staff member at the University of Saskatchewan.
On Wednesday, the University of Saskatchewan sent out a campus-wide warning saying that 32-year-old Travis Patron was trespassing on university property and posing as a staff member.
A 32-year-old man was arrested by Saskatoon police on Wednesday after someone was reported to be impersonating a police officer earlier in the week.
Travis Patron was the suspect in both situations.
Patron was reported to be posing as a police officer Tuesday in the 600 block of Spadina Crescent East.
Offers had learned a man had approached a woman and child and accused the woman of abduction. The woman walked into a hotel looking for help and bystanders intervened, with the man fleeing on foot.
A similar incident happened on Monday in the 70 block of Campus Drive. A man posing as an officer approached a woman and offered to escort her through the area. She declined and the man left.
Patron was charged with two counts of impersonating a peace officer, criminal harassment, and two counts of failing to comply with court-imposed conditions.
He appeared in Saskatoon Provincial Court Thursday morning.
This is not Patron’s first offence.
In 2021, Patron, the former self-proclaimed leader of the Canadian Nationalist Party, was arrested for posting anti-Semetic videos and hate speech between June 2019 and July 2020.
Executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, Evan Balgord, previously told Global News Patron had been on the network’s radar since around 2017 and 2018 when he was trying to start the Canadian Nationalist Party.
He posted videos and hate speech for 18 months before being arrested.
“Travis has continued to do anti-Semitic posts, make videos where he’s giving a Roman salute, what you and I would recognize and call a Nazi salute,” Balgord said.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies (FSWC), a Canadian Jewish human rights foundation, also said they had filed hate speech complaints against Patron.
The complaint was regarding a flyer posted on Canadian Nationalist Party social media pages and is related to the video.
Patron represented himself during his appearances on his previous charges and said, “what right her majesty the Queen has to police his speech in this matter.”
He was given a one-year sentence in October 2022 for the hate speeches.
He was also charged for causing bodily harm during an assault in 2019 after he allegedly attacked two women.
As for the recent impersonation allegations, the Saskatoon Police Service said they are still investigating.
“When we have incidences of people trying to impersonate our members in a way that causes fear in our community, it erodes that trust that we work really hard to build,” said police spokesperson Kelsie Fraser.
Fraser said that officers are required to identify themselves as an officer in any encounter with the public and have to provide their badge number when asked.
“That is first and foremost how to identify somebody,” Fraser explained. “If somebody has concerns beyond that, they can always call the police service to verify the identity and the badge number.”
Fraser said she did not believe Patron was wearing a uniform during the time of the alleged impersonations.
“These incidents are a concern for sure, but fortunately, we’ve seen few of them over the last number of years.”
— With files from Global News’ Brody Langager and Kelly Skjerven
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