‘Looking over us’: Calgary police reflect on Rick Sonnenberg, 30 years of HAWCS

July marked three decades of the Calgary Police Service's HAWCS air support unit, largely brought about through the vision and effort of the sister of a young police officer who was killed in the line of duty. (Image by Damien Wood / CTV Calgary)

Many years ago now, a young police officer named Brent Hutt was doing early-morning speed enforcement along Deerfoot Trail, near Southland Drive.

It was roughly 3 a.m. when he pulled a vehicle over.

Hutt was about to put his back to the highway and approach an unknown individual in the pitch black.

His radio squawked to life.

It was HAWCS, the Calgary Police Service’s then-still-rather-new helicopter unit.

“Put me out with that unit on Deerfoot,” the voice on the radio said.

Above, a familiar rumble came into earshot, and a high-powered searchlight turned 3 a.m. into 3 p.m. with the flick of a switch.

The pulled-over driver leaned out his window, looking up and then at Hutt as he approached.

“They sent a helicopter here for this?” he asked the young cop.

“No, they sent a helicopter here for me,” Hutt answered.

Today, Hutt is the sergeant in charge of the CPS air support unit and says he’ll happily finish his career there.

He talked about that old call when he interviewed for the position.

“When I think of HAWCS, do I 100 per cent think of catching criminals, finding missing people and all that good stuff that we do as police officers? Yes,” Hutt told CTV News.

“But my thing that I look forward to with coming to work is being part of a team that helps police officers stay safe and come home alive.”

***

The morning of that old call, Hutt was working along northbound Deerfoot Trail.

Across the highway was Rick Sonnenberg’s memorial.

Some years before that and before HAWCS, in the early-morning hours of Oct. 8, 1993, Sonnenberg and Lisa Jorgensen, young constables with CPS, were attempting to stop a 17-year-old in a stolen vehicle.

As Sonnenberg set up a spike belt, he was struck at an estimated 160 km/h by the fleeing teen.

Sonnenberg, 27, was killed instantly.

***

Kevin Brookwell, a sergeant in fall 1992, was, off the side of his desk, running a passion project to put police in the air.

The first “eyes in the sky” CPS had were those of Alex Molnar.

Calgarians of the time know Molnar as Captain Kirk, traffic helicopter pilot for Lite 96/CFAC 960.

In fall 1992, CPS arranged to borrow Molnar and his helicopter when trouble warranted air support.

By early 1993, CPS vehicles were sporting numbers on their roofs for Molnar’s benefit.

Molnar also had his cellphone traded out for a police radio—callsign 9600.

And in summer 1993, CPS added an officer to the helicopter—Mike Lomore, then a constable, was first—and ran full night shifts over several days for several weeks.

“It was Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night (and) Saturday night,” Brookwell said.

“We had to go through Transport Canada because we needed to designate the helicopter as a police helicopter because there are certain rules and regulations about what can fly over a built-up city at nighttime.

“It was hugely successful. ... (CPS) was committed to continuing the research.”

A couple of months later, the teen in the stolen vehicle ruined many lives and raised one question:

Brookwell, retired now after runs as a cop and a communications head, can’t say whether HAWCS would have made a difference the morning Sonnenberg died.

But it could have.

***

When you’re arranging a funeral, there are times you need to talk about anything but the funeral.

Arranging Sonnenberg’s was on Brookwell as the sergeant in charge of HR.

He met Sonnenberg’s sister, Lisa (now Stinson), and a friendship was born of those conversations.

“We talked about a lot of things, but the helicopter did come up,” Brookwell said.

“In January 1994, she reached out and said, ‘I want to do something significant in memory of my brother.’

“She came up with the idea of a lottery (to fundraise) and she was the one who came up with (the name) HAWCS—Helicopter Air Watch for Community Safety.”

Stinson built the Rick Sonnenberg Memorial Society and by fall 1994 had pulled in about $1.5 million through its lottery and the generosity of several businesses.

A line in a news article doesn’t do justice to the toll of that task.

Both in terms of effort and emotion, it was a difficult time for her.

She has told media in the past, “I really don’t know sometimes how I got through that.”

But she has also told media she chose building something for her brother over despair.

In late June 1995, the first helicopter that would be referred to as HAWCS landed in Calgary to much fanfare.

The following month, it went up for its first shift.

***

One of the blockbusters enamouring audiences in movie theatres in summer 1994 was Speed, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.

Featured in that movie is a helicopter—the MD520N.

CPS purchased the same one and sent two pilots 2,500 km to Mesa, Ariz., to retrieve it and return by air.

The MD520N is neither long-range nor large.

“It wouldn’t have been ‘as the crow flies’ but ‘as the jet fuel’s available’ as they were coming home,” Brookwell said.

“They had that thing packed so full with stuff.

“(And) from gas station to gas station, basically, they flew it back to Calgary.”

***

For the first few years, CPS used HAWCS as its nighttime patrol helicopter.

Lite 96/CFAC 960’s traffic helicopter continued to help out during the day.

A single helicopter can’t run all day and all night, Brookwell said.

From a maintenance standpoint, “it just didn’t work.”

So the original HAWCS unit was Brookwell heading up a half-dozen people and Molnar when seconded.

It was a good gig:

“I always have been fascinated with aviation—helicopters and that kind of thing,” Brookwell said.

“Right around the early ’90s, one of the most popular shows on TV was COPS, and several of the episodes—I recall it was a Texas law enforcement agency—part of the episodes would show their air crew.”

But the arrangement in place was too good to last.

Eventually, rules and regulations around the use of the traffic helicopter grew cumbersome, and the broadcaster grew unwilling to continue.

Around the time CPS was down to one helicopter, Brookwell received a call from Stinson.

“It was a total shock,” he said.

“We would meet often for coffees, lunch, just to keep in touch, but she just reached out and said, ‘I want to do it again. I think you need a second helicopter, so let’s do it all again.’”

Another lottery was held through the Rick Sonnenberg Memorial Society, and this time, no added generosity from businesses was needed.

Brookwell doesn’t know why Stinson did it all again.

But he’s glad she did. HAWCS as we know it? All her.

The original MD520N flew alongside the second helicopter—an EC120—into the mid- to late aughts.

Another EC120 was purchased when the original MD520N was retired.

***

Today, the air support unit operates a pair of Airbus H125 helicopters—one purchased in 2020, the other in 2021.

Hutt leads a chief pilot, four full-time pilots and a part-time pilot, four full-time flight officers and three part-time flight officers, two aircraft mechanical engineers and an office manager.

Someone is working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and only one of the helicopters is ever down at a time.

They can cross the city in minutes.

They can see in the dark or eliminate it with a searchlight called a “Nightsun” and livestream video back to incident command.

Over the years, the tech has only gotten better.

And the number of call-outs for and arrests attributable to HAWCS have grown high:

• 2023 saw HAWCS called out 4,657 times, resulting in 748 arrests;
• 2022 saw HAWCS called out 4,908 times, resulting in 809 arrests;
• 2021 saw HAWCS called out 4,699 times, resulting in 772 arrests;
• 2020 saw HAWCS called out 5,004 times, resulting in 748 arrests; and
• 2019 saw HAWCS called out 4,370 times, resulting in 761 arrests.

Chief Katie McLellan was a CPS member for a long time before she inherited the local force and has watched HAWCS grow up.

She says the helicopters give officers precious options.

“As a result of those helicopters, we’ve been able to change a lot of policies,” McLellan told CTV News.

“Where potentially, in the past, there might have been tragic interactions, we’re now able to, with the helicopters, have our officers hold back, be more strategic, be more tactical before we go in and intervene.”

Simply put, she says, the helicopters save lives.

But it’s the life that was lost that she thinks of whenever she hears HAWCS overhead.

“I look up, and I think of Rick to this day,” she said.

“We’ve been so privileged and honoured to fulfill and keep Rick’s legacy, with him looking over us every single day.”

***

Sonnenberg’s memorial existed along the southbound lanes of Deerfoot Trail, near Southland Drive, for many years.

It included a plate engraved with the message, “A friend, taken in the line of duty.”

If you worked the force—particularly in that area—you knew exactly where to find it.

“I policed in Six District for almost half my career, so that memorial was a part of our patrol area,” Hutt said.

“We would also go there every year.”

Eventually, the time came to find a new place for the memorial, and where was an easy choice.

“The plate is here now—right outside the hangar,” Hutt said.