Cobourg Police Service

The Town of Cobourg was incorporated out of Hamilton Township in 1837,^[1] and a single-officer police force operating out of Victoria Hall had been established by 1898.^[8]

In 1915, Constable William Rourke suffered a fatal heart attack during a violent arrest.^[9] He had been employed by the force for 22 years.

In 1970, the Canadian Armed Forces determined that the Cobourg Armoury building — a two-storey brick structure that had been built in 1904 a few blocks west of Victoria Hall — was surplus, and turned the structure over to the Town of Cobourg.^[10] The building was subsequently turned over to the police force in 1971.^[8]

In the early 2000s, various politicians, the Cobourg and Port Hope Police Associations, and the Cobourg Police Services Board advocated for or endorsed studies of the amalgamation of the Cobourg Police Service and neighbouring Port Hope Police Service.^[11][12] In 2003, the Cobourg Police Services Board hired Garry Clement, a former RCMP officer, as the Cobourg Police Service's new chief of police, with a mandate to amalgamate the two police forces into one service covering all of West Northumberland, including the Town of Cobourg, Municipality of Port Hope, and Township of Hamilton.^[13] Port Hope ultimately elected to maintain its independent police service, and as of 2022, both municipalities continue to maintain individual police forces.

In 2004, 18-year old Troy Davey called Cobourg Police claiming to have been the victim of a robbery. While being interviewed by Constable Chris Garrett, Davey pulled out a knife and fatally wounded the lone officer, who managed to shoot Davey in the leg before collapsing.^[14] Davey was arrested at the Northumberland Hills Hospital shortly thereafter, where he had sought medical attention for his gunshot wound. It was later determined that Davey had made a hoax call with the intent of ambushing responding police officers with a knife and bomb, and he was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2007.^[15]

In 2018, the Service, Northumberland County OPP, and Northumberland Hills Hospital (NHH) established a shared mental health crisis response team which partnered specially-trained OPP and CPS officers with NHH nurses, operating 5 days a week.^[16]

During the summer of 2022, the Cobourg Police Service provided parking enforcement under contract to neighbouring Hamilton Township.^[17] The service was provided by the force's special constables, and was repeated over the summer of 2023.^[18]