With more than 25 years of experience, this Bradford-raised cop is moving up in the ranks.
South Simcoe Police Chief John Van Dyke made the official introduction for Insp. Julio Fernandes during the police services board meeting earlier this week at the service’s South Division building in Bradford.
The promotion officially took place on June 1 and Fernandes is now in charge of operations responsible for patrol, investigative services and also oversees training, fleet, quartermaster, professional standards, policies and procedures..
“I’ll be able to use my previous experience on a leadership level, a management level, and obviously expanding my areas of responsibilities, so it’s a good challenge and based on my previous experience I think I’ll be able to bring some things to the table,” Fernandes said.
While the new role means less time on the street, Fernandes said he’s still looking forward to it.
“I like operations and obviously investigative service, that’s where I came from and where I feel more comfortable,” he said.
During the presentation Van Dyke said Fernandes began his career in policing in the mid-1990s as a co-op student and later auxiliary officer for the Bradford West Gwillimbury Police Service, and continued with the amalgamated South Simcoe Police Service in 1997, while also studying criminology at the University of Ottawa.
In 1998, he was hired as a special constable assigned to the courts bureau, before becoming a police constable and attending the Ontario Police College.
For three years, he utilized his ability to speak Portuguese as a uniform patrol officer in Bradford, but quickly developed an interest in criminal investigations and by 2002 was a detective constable in the criminal investigations bureau.
Over 13 years, he investigated sexual assault, street crime, intelligence and technology crime.
He also worked with the organized crime section of the OPP as a liaison to the child sexual exploitation unit, and was acting sergeant of criminal investigation and uniform patrol for several years.
In 2018 he was promoted to sergeant and reassigned as an operational sergeant for two years, during which he also conducted professional standards investigations.
After a short duration as sergeant of the street crime unit in May of 2021 he was promoted to staff sergeant in charge of investigative services, which oversaw criminal investigations courts and forensic identification.
During that time he was also the on-call duty office and is a trained negotiator and incident commander.
Board chair Chris Gariepy congratulated Fernandes on the promotion.
“Your future’s bright and open ended,” he said.
