The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

FOR six months of police training, Constable Rico Thompson Jr lived by one rule: don’t embarrass his daddy.

Then his daddy turned up to train his squad.

Assistant Superintendent Rico Thompson Sr is responsible for specialised training in the Royal Bahamas Police Force, including physical fitness, defensive tactics, drill and professional conduct. He travelled to Grand Bahama to train his son’s squad, and he called it the highlight of his 23-year career.

For the 19-year-old recruit, seeing his father arrive at the training camp was like seeing “a ghost”.

“I felt like he went extra hard because of me, so it was very memorable,” Constable Thompson Jr said. “Growing up around the training college, seeing what he does to the recruits, I got to feel what that was like also.”

Father and son embraced at the graduation ceremony in Grand Bahama on November 4. ASP Thompson Sr said he told his son he was proud of him.

“All I ever wanted to do was make my daddy proud. So that’s why it was very emotional for me to actually hear him say it,” said Constable Thompson Jr, who calls his father his hero.

He was among 36 officers who graduated at the Grand Bahama ceremony.

As a child, he watched in awe as his father pulled on his uniform each morning. His father would put his police hat on him, teach him to salute and take him to the station. He has wanted to be a police officer since he was five.

His father, among the first in his family to join the force, had other plans. ASP Thompson Sr said he never imagined his only son, a CR Walker graduate and a talented percussionist, would follow him into policing. He had hoped his son would go to college and pursue music. He said he never pressured him and only wanted him to succeed in whatever career he chose.

Constable Thompson Jr did enrol at the University of The Bahamas. During his first semester, he realised he did not want to stay in a classroom and saw himself working in the field like his father.

He told his mother first. Then, nervously, he told his father.

The news surprised ASP Thompson Sr. His first thoughts were the demands of police training and the prospect of his son being away from home for six months, and he said he needed time to think it over. A month later, he gave his blessing for his son to fill out the application forms, with one condition.

“Everything pertaining to this recruitment process will be on him,” ASP Thompson Sr said.

In April, Constable Thompson Jr left New Providence for the training camp in Grand Bahama. It was his first time living on another island without his family.

Knowing the reputation his father had built in the force, he said he had big shoes to fill and pushed himself to give 100 percent. He joked that he did not want any instructor reporting back to his father that he was not giving his best.

It worked. ASP Thompson Sr said he could see his son’s physical and emotional transformation. He was prouder still when members of his son’s squad described the newest Thompson as their best driller.

Still, he told his son not to feel pressured by the family legacy, and simply to show up each day as his best self.

Constable Thompson Jr said young men struggling to find a career path should consider law enforcement, saying it could change their lives for the better.