Deputy Sheriff Rob Degoey Rob DeGoey, a 2006 grad of the Courts Acade- my now serving as a deputy sheriff in Vancouver, recalls vividly the effective- ness of his training “| woke up every morning excited about what | was going to learn. It meant being ready for physical training in the morning with a run and push-ups in the park, or strength drills, wrist locks and handcuffing in the gym. Afterwards it was into the classroom, where legal studies, policy and communications were stressed. Then it was time for some scenarios: your heart races from the anxiety and you're soaked in sweat at the end. You talk with your partner about what went wrong and what went right—teamwork is constantly emphasized and trust in your partner is important.” Division) and two years later became a free-standing Academy, eventually dropping “Services” from its name. Broadbent continued in his post until 1987-88 when the Academy came under the Educational Services and Extension Programs (later Interdisciplinary Studies) Division under Deans Larry Goble and then Patricia Ross. Irwin DeVries became the Academy's Program Director from 1992 to 1997. More recently, the Directors have been Murray Day, Gordon Spencer and Jim Mancell. Today, the program prepares those pursuing a career in sheriff services, with subject areas running from legal studies to firearms training, from court safety workshops to Driving With Finesse courses, from force- options techniques to communications skills. The nine-week program is delivered as often as required to meet hiring projections for court locations throughout B.C. Advanced programs include such sophisticated topics as the managing of targeted violence and the gathering of intelligence to protect those involved in court services. “On a typical day,’ says Jim Mancell, “a deputy sheriff may at one moment be in the sheriff’s lock-up dealing with a hostile and verbally abusive prisoner and at the next confer with Crown counsel about the day's trial schedule, implement jury-management procedures or politely answer questions from the public” Sometimes the situations are a lot less typical, as they were for the Air India bombing trial in Vancouver between 2002 and 2005 when deputy sher- iffs confiscated knives, bludgeons and even bullets from courtroom visitors. Gordon Spencer helped design the special security measures and manage- ment plans for that trial as well as the Pickton preliminary inquiry. Another adviser for the Air India case was Esko Kajander, a retired Vancouver police inspector and a developer and part-time instructor of advanced courses for the Academy (such as Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment—designed to minimize on-site risks during trials and other potentially hazardous events). Among his suggestions adopted were to have the courtroom built with concrete walls. “It was the first terrorist trial in Canada and it involved bombing,” he explains. It’s this sort of on-the-job expertise that the Courts Academy's leaders and lecturers bring to the recruits training to be deputy sheriffs. common law system, dating back at least ten centuries to the Anglo- Saxon era. The sheriff’s role of maintaining law and order in the community lived on and was transplanted to the New World. The first sheriff in the colony of Vancouver Island, the forerunner of British Columbia, was appointed in 1857. Eighty-six men served as sheriffs throughout B.C. between then and 1974—when, under the new NDP government of former social worker Dave Barrett, nine county sheriff offices merged into a single T: sheriff's office is among the oldest offices known in the English SS CSO a