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Top Cops: 'Fleet Foot Flanagan' ushered in changes to force in 20th century

Daniel Drolet
The Ottawa Citizen

June 18, 2005

It was April 23, 1958, and the Rideau River, swollen with runoff, was flowing fast and cold.

Ernest Ladouceur, a New Edinburgh teenager, was hunting for frogs near the Minto Bridges. A broken piece of fence lay at the river's edge. When he stepped onto it, the force of his step pushed the piece of fence from the shore. The fence had suddenly become a raft, and Ernest, a non-swimmer, realized with horror that he was now floating toward the roaring Rideau Falls.

A woman on shore alerted police. Five squad cars converged on the scene.

Enter Tom Flanagan, then a constable.

Already known as "Fleet Foot Flanagan" for his ability to chase down robbers, he was a strong swimmer and former member of the police underwater rescue squad. Stripping down to his socks and underwear, he plunged into the icy water, swam out to the raft and ferried Mr. Ladouceur to shore on his back.

Minutes later the raft was carried over the falls and smashed onto the rocks below.

"For his feat," noted the Citizen that day, "Const. Flanagan suffered a violent headache, an upset stomach and got the rest of the day off."

He also received several commendations for bravery -- the first, but not the last, of his career.

Over the course of the 150 years of the city of Ottawa's existence, a number of police officers have made their mark on the city. It is hard to pick a few to profile -- and even harder when you consider that records were sketchy for most of the 19th century.

Tom Flanagan's story is interesting for two reasons.

First, he was a bit of an action hero -- a policeman's policeman who chased robbers and swam icy waters to rescue people. Over the course of his 42-year career, from 1951 to 1993, he was involved in a number of major incidents. For example, in 1963, he led a team of officers into a rectory where robbers had just killed three people. One of the gunmen surrendered to him. In 1979, he negotiated the end to a hostage-taking.

"If anyone is shot, you'll be leaving here dead," he told the hostage-takers. In 1981, he received a Star of Courage.

But, perhaps more importantly, it could be argued that Tom Flanagan is the person who bridged the gap between old and new. His own career paralleled the changes Ottawa had to make as it grew in the 20th century. Trained by officers who learned to be policemen in the 1920s, he was instrumental in modernizing attitudes when he served as police chief from 1989 to 1993.

"When Tom Flanagan started walking a beat, stores didn't have bars on the windows, drugs were something out of a pharmacy, race relations was a term yet to be invented and reaching out to the gay community meant throwing homosexuals in jails," wrote the Citizen in a 1992 profile.

"Consider that when Flanagan became a cop in 1951, he was learning from guys who had learned their trade in the 1920s. So when Flanagan, 42 years later as police chief, is seen standing on a podium handing out civic awards to gay organizations, it's enough to make retired cop Eddy Logan shake his head.

"'We used to work at catching them (gays),' says Logan; 'I would never have imagined a police chief giving awards to gays. Things had to change, though, I guess.'

“When you look at Flanagan, it's almost like looking through a window to the past. He came from an era that produced a certain kind of policeman,' says Ottawa police Supt. Jim Bickford.

"'But while Flanagan worked in that environment, he was never really part of it. If he had been, he couldn't have been part of the change.'

"As police chief, Flanagan helped set up race relations training for his officers. He hired more women and minorities and he insisted that his officers listen to the gay community. He pushed hard for putting police officers back on the street and into the community."

When he died in 2002, he was called one of the most colourful, vocal and decorated lawmen in the capital's history."If you're going to be a police officer," he once said, "Your reason should be that you want to help people, not fight crime."

Next saturday in this look at Ottawa police history: conduct