Tall in the saddle

BY JON TATTRIE
THE WEEKLY NEWS
One of Halifax's top police officers retired last
month. Sgt. Mike Spearns made his name tackling
speeding drivers as the head of Halifax
Regional Police's traffic unit, but he made
headlines for his handling of one of the slowest
road-users in the city's history.
Spearns hung up his badge and gun at the
end of March after 33 years on the force.
"It was a very anxious day. I was up at 2:30 in
the morning," the 55-year-old said in an interview
last week. "There's a lot of mixed emotion.
Policing gets into your blood - it's very addictive."
Spearns started his career with seven years
walking the beat around Gottingen Street. He
formed lifelong bonds with his fellow officers
and with the citizens they served, he said.
In 2005, he became head of the resurrected
traffic unit, which had died during amalgamation.
That put him in charge of 10 officers, seven
vehicles - and 14 Harley Davidson motorcycles.
"I've been on a motorcycle since I was 13,"
he said. "Every day I would pinch myself. I told
the chief I'd do it for free."
For Stearns, the importance of the work was
deeply personal. In his early years on the force,
the son of a close colleague was killed by a
drunk driver. "It was horrific," he recalled.
In the years after amalgamation, 18 Haligonians
died annually on the road. "There were
people speeding, running stop signs, red lights,"
Spearns said of the early 2000s.
"We've pretty much got the speeding and
the pedestrian fatalities under control. I've very
proud of what the members have done. I insisted
on the members being polite and professional."
Last year, only four people died on the city's
streets and it's said that motorists almost enjoy
getting a ticket from Spearns' well-mannered
officers.
But for all his work stopping speeders,
Spearns will perhaps be best remembered for
his work with a much slower road user.
He was operating a radar on Purcell's Cove
Road in July 2007 when he noticed drivers
swerving. He went to investigate and found a
turtle stranded in the middle of the street. A
tire track on its back earned it the nickname
Dunlop.
The veteran cop stood in the road, directing
traffic around the wounded amphibian, until a
cruiser arrived and transported Dunlop to
Hope for Wildlife, where she was nursed to
health.
"We're usually after the hare, not the tortoise,"
Stearns joked.
A cornerstone of good policing, he said, is
not only to protect and serve, but to lead by
example. "The public look at that and say,
'They're not a bunch of gun-totting thugs,
they're not an invading army. They're the thin
blue line that protects us from what's wrong in
society,'" he said.
Sgt. Dave Reynolds is the man tasked with
filling Spearns' motorcycle boots as head of the
traffic unit.
"I'm not sure there are too many of us that
can approach the job with as much passion as
Mike," he said. "Mike's passion was the glue that
held things together while he was here."
Reynolds is confident the unit Spearns and
others created will have no trouble continuing
his work.
"Mike was tasked with building it up from
the ground after it had been mothballed. He
did a magnificent job. He's built it - all I have to
do is hang on and steer," he said.
As for Spearns, he said he'll stay on the road
in his retirement. He and his wife are planning
motorcycle trips across Canada and Europe.
jon@jontattrie.ca