Photo: Mike Biden

Summerland RCMP has been speaking to high school students about police operations in an attempt to ensure they are aware of how easily firearms-related incidents can become serious.

Cpl. Chris Richardson spoke to a class of Summerland Secondary School law students earlier this month, using replica semi-automatic firearms. He asked the students to try to point out which gun was real, in order to show how easily fake guns can be mistaken for real ones. 

"We have to always believe it's a real firearm," Richardson said. "It's to show them that even though they know that they're not real, whether it be a pellet gun or an airsoft gun, these can easily be mistaken for a real firearm which is a high risk to us and to the public."

Richardson showed the group of students an arrest procedure and other details of what happens behind the scenes of police work, giving a tour of RCMP detachment cells and providing time for one-on-one discussions with police to understand further. 

"I think they were very receptive, just showing them the airsoft gun in comparison, they took that really to heart," Richardson said.

He has been doing school talks in various jurisdictions since 2008. 

"I think it's good to show the human side of policing as well. We're not robots, it's what we deal with every day," he said. 

Photo: Mike Biden