Jax man has firepower

When he’s not playing lacrosse,

By jason vondersmith

The Portland Tribune, Apr 8, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Pat Jones carries a stick for his job as a defenseman and faceoff specialist with the Portland LumberJax. Left: In his other job, with a police force in Canada, Jones carries heavier equipment.

KATIE HARTLEY / TRIBUNE PHOTO

He never had any fascination with a superhero, and he hardly saw himself as a do-gooder. Pat Jones, a defenseman with the Portland LumberJax lacrosse team, just wanted to be in on the action as part of Canada’s version of a SWAT team.

“I want to be there when things are taking place, and not after the fact,” says Jones, a constable with the Durham Regional Police Service near his native Oshawa, Ontario. “I thought it’d be an exciting job, and I wanted to give back to the community. I didn’t see myself sitting behind a desk.”

Jones, Portland’s faceoff man, works for the Durham police force during the week, guarding one of Ontario’s nuclear plants near Oshawa. He went to the University of Western Ontario and then Ontario Police College to be a police officer, and worked a street beat for about four years before getting a job with Durham’s tactical unit. He has been guarding a nuclear plant for about three years.

Being an armored responder and patrolling a nuclear plant is a steppingstone. Eventually, he wants to be part of the tactical unit that responds to crises every day in and around Toronto.

Conflict’s always possible

For now, Jones packs an M-4 rifle, a Glock pistol, a Taser and a few other weapons and sometimes rides around the plant in an armored truck with five other police officers. The Ontario plants haven’t been breached since Sept. 11, 2001, when the Canadian government started beefing up security and fencing to prevent potential terrorist attacks.

But Jones, 29 and single, trains and prepares every day for the possibility of conflict.

“You’re training for something, and who knows if it’s going to happen,” he says. “I try to take the mind-set that it could be any day. We’re professionals, and we want to do the job right.”

The situation is fairly intense, even though there hasn’t been trouble at the plant.

“We’re carrying automatic weapons, and there are thousands of people who work there,” Jones says. “The province depends on the power, there’s huge money involved. It’s taken very seriously.”

In the next five to 10 years, Jones wants to make the jump to become a member of a full-fledged tactical unit – basically a SWAT team, which stands for Special Weapons and Tactics.

“It’s a competitive unit,” he says.

Two jobs ‘can be taxing’

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