Astute leaders surround recently promoted OPP Inspector Ahmed Mohamed

October 24, 2022

Interactions with police officers can influence favourability towards a law enforcement career.

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Inspector Ahmed Mohamed first contact with police was an unpleasant experience and he vowed to steer clear of the career he is excelling in.

Raised in the Kipling Avenue and Dixon Road neighbourhood, he and a friend were placed in the back of a Peel Region police cruiser and driven to a location far from their home.

“They were looking for somebody and I guess they didn’t like our reaction,” Mohamed said. “Being just 12 at the time and having to figure a way to find my way back home was hard.”

Throughout elementary and high school, he enjoyed playing football.

It was not until Mohamed enrolled in York University’s Business Administration & Management program did the coach reveal he was a Toronto Police officer.

“I guess he did not want me to know what he did for fear that I might be turned off from the sport,” the Silverthorn Collegiate Institute graduate said.

The ploy worked.

“Knowing that he was a normal human being and good person showed me that not all police officers are built and wired the same way,” said Saudi Arabia-born Mohamed who came to Canada at age four with his Somalian parents. “It dawned on me that that is something I could do.”

With three friends in policing encouraging him to join the profession, he caved in to the peer pressure.

“I didn’t tell my parents what I was doing until just before the background officer was about to come to our home to do the assessment,” Mohamed said. “I told them I had applied and gone through most of the stages. Mom was worried while dad was taken back because he didn’t think this was a career I would pursue because of my negative experience.”

He chose the OPP over York Regional Police which hired him as a Constable.

“I started with the OPP as a Cadet which didn’t matter because I knew I had the entire province to play with down the road,” said Mohamed who joined the organization in 2009 and was promoted to the senior rank last July.

As an officer of Somali heritage, he is aware of his responsibility to help improve relations between his community and police.

For Mohamed, that starts with mentorship and encouraging young Somali-Canadians to consider law enforcement as a viable career.

“This is something I do and I don’t speak about it,” he said. “It really resonated after I was assigned to a drug project. Out of the 62 targets, 31 were people I grew up with. These were individuals I went to elementary and high school with. That could have been me on that wall among the persons of interest had it not been for my parents who took me and my younger brother out of a challenging environment. I could have easily gone down that path. Having being raised in community housing in a tough space, I know the challenges these young people face.”

A former Executive Officer to the Provincial Commander, Mohamed has lost more than 20 friends to gun violence.

In late August, his father called to say one of his friends was murdered in Yukon.

“My first reaction was, ‘What was he doing there’? Mohamed, who was seconded to Toronto Police Service Gun and Gang Task Force for a year in 2013, recalled. “He was not working there, but I probably knew why he was there. The price of drugs is higher there.”

Assigned to Operational Support, he has served in various areas, including the Asian Organized Crime Task Force, the Provincial Anti-Terrorism Section, the Policy Unit, the Project Support Centre, the Alcohol & Gaming Commission of Ontario Investigation & Enforcement Bureau and the Office of Professionalism, Respect, Inclusion and Leadership.

At the Highway Safety Division headquarters in Aurora, astute leaders, including Mohamed’s first two Unit Commanders – Chief Superintendent Rohan Thompson and Superintendent Andre Phelps – surround the nominee for this year’s International Association of Chiefs of Police 40 Under-40 recognition.

Inspector Ahmed Mohamed (c) surrounded by Chief Superintendent Rohan Thompson (l) & Superintendent Andre Phelps (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Thompson, who with Phelps are the OPP’s highest-ranked Black/racialized officers, is enamored by Mohamed’s growth.

“When you look at what this young man has done in areas he has worked with, you get an idea of why he is where he is at now in this organization,” noted the Divisional Commander. “As a Cadet, I had to recommend him to start as there were a bunch of them that came in at the same time. But Ahmed stood out because of his work ethic and positive attitude. It didn’t matter what the task was, he always did it with a smile and asked to do more.”

In addition to Mohamed, the other Black Inspectors are Chris Josiah who is with the Criminal Investigation Branch, Brian Griffith who is in Alcohol & Gaming and Phillip Brown who is the Tactical Unit Commander.

Having two older brothers serving with the Jamaica Constabulary Force was the impetus for Thompson to aspire to become a police officer.

“They got a lot of respect and I liked that,” he said.

Coming to Canada at age 12, Thompson applied to Peel Regional Police soon after graduating from Glenforest Secondary School in Mississauga.

When the call for an interview came, he turned it down after having second thoughts about policing in the community he resided in.

“Peel called me and said they were going to reschedule it, but my mind was made up,” Thompson, 53, said. “I applied to the OPP after being a summer co-op student, was successful and started on February 5, 1990.”

He almost lost his life in his first year on the job.

A week after his 10-month probation ended, Thompson was struck by a pick-up truck in Niagara Falls while running roadside checks for impaired drivers.

Knocked 40 metres down the road, he was ran over by the vehicle.

“The guy drove over my chest,” Thompson, who suffered a broken leg and other serious injuries, recalled. “I remember lying in a hospital bed and some of my colleagues saying they had to call my mom. I told them not to do that at 4 a.m. in the morning. I contacted my brother a little later and mom was not told anything until about two days later.”

He served with the Niagara Falls and Port Credit detachments for six years before being promoted to Sergeant. Receiving his second promotion in 2002, the new Staff Sergeant was assigned the task of putting together a Provincial Emergency Response Team (PERT) when the OPP conducted a gap analysis following the September 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The team comprised highly trained specialists expected to respond to incidents involving chemical, radiological, nuclear and explosive disposal and urban search and rescue operations.

“I developed a team for something entirely new and relatively unknown for policing at the time, so this was a great challenge,” said Thompson who had temporary assignments as Executive Assistant to then Deputy Commissioner Jay Hope and OPP Liaison Officer to then Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services Deputy Minister Deborah Newman. “This unique project involved finding space, qualified people and other resources. I spent five years heading the team and that is one of the highlights of my career.”

Prior to applying for his current role in 2019, he was in Alcohol & Gaming for three years.

Since 2008, Thompson has been an Aide-de-Camp.

“It is an honourary position and you have to be recommended by the OPP Commissioner and appointed by the Lieutenant Governor,” said the Deputy Chief Aide-de-Camp. “It is a real honour to work in that position that allows you to interact with people you might not otherwise get the opportunity to see. I have sat at dinner tables with The Great Lakes States Governors and others.”

Thompson and his wife, Andrea Clarke-Thompson, have two children.

A Senior Manager at Ingram Micro Canada, she was honoured with the Canadian Women in the IT Channel Mentor of the Year Award last August.

OPP Chief Superintendent Rohan Thompson (second from left) with retired Jamaica Defence Force officers Orley Powell (l) and Godphey Sterling and Jamaica Ex-Soldiers Association (Toronto chapter) trustee Sam Billich (r) at the JESA gala in October 2015 (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Migrating with his family from Trinidad & Tobago (T & T), Phelps joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a Reservist.

While at dinner with colleagues after a grueling training session, one of them mentioned that he had an interview with the OPP the next day.

“There was a point in my life when I thought about pursuing policing, but I had heard so many negative things,” said Phelps whose parents are from T & T and Dominica. “Growing up in Peel, I saw some negative things and so I really didn’t think that was a career for me.”

While pursuing History Studies at York University with an eye on teaching, he had a change of heart.

“Being in the Army and having exposure to some exciting things, I thought teaching would not work out,” Phelps, an Aide-de-Camp for just over a year to the province’s Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell, said. “I was thinking about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the OPP, but I settled for the OPP because I would have had to give up my Army commissioned rank with the RCMP. I was not going to do that as I worked hard for it.”

Starting in 1994 with the Caledon detachment doing general duties, he spent time with the Field Support Bureau before joining the Highway Safety Division in 2007 as a Commander of two detachments over eight years. Seconded to Corrections for five years, he returned to Highway Safety on a temporary assignment and was promoted to Superintendent in April 2021.

In his nearly 30 years in policing, Phelps recalls tussling with a guy in a ditch who was trying to wrestle his firearm as one of the closer calls on the job.

“What has been most challenging is being able to process what you are seeing, compartmentalize it in a good way and move on from it,” he said.

Canada’s first Black male police officer served with the OPP. Peter Butler III spent 23 years with the provincial police before retiring in 1936.

Staff Sergeant Vanessa Gosein is the highest-ranking racialized female officer.