Retired Calgary detective committed to sharing his CPS experiences

After decades spent with the Calgary Police Service, including 14 years as a homicide detective, Dave Sweet has retired. Despite having left the force, he has found new ways to serve the city while also passing along the knowledge and experiences he acquired over his career. 

Sweet was born and raised in Calgary, the son of a teacher and palaeontologist who introduced him to the values that guided his life.

“A life of service was just sort of something that I was sort of born into,” says Sweet.  

But while his upbringing may have taught him the values he lives by, it was the stories of a grandfather he never got the chance to meet – a police officer in New York around the turn of the 20th century – that drove him to join the Calgary police. 

 “Somebody’s just broken into the furniture store and running away with the till. And there’s my grandfather jumping from rooftop to rooftop to try and catch this guy,” says Sweet. “These were the images that were kind of conjured up.”

After contemplating a career in coaching and childhood physical education, Sweet got his diploma in criminology and joined the Calgary force. He served as a uniformed officer for six years before transitioning to the drug undercover street team.

“I just started getting drawn more to the seedier, darker sides of crime,” says Sweet.

From there, Sweet would move on to what he refers to as the “guns and gangs” team, dealing with organized crime, before being promoted to homicide detective where he finished his career as one of the longest serving sworn members.

Despite the grim nature of his work, Sweet was able to find a silver lining to keep him going — connections he made to the people around him.

“Whether it was with your colleagues or families that you served, it was the relationships,” says Sweet. “They were the things that kept you moving forward.”

As lead detective on the Natasha Farah shooting case of 2014, he forged a relationship with the victim’s mother, Naima Ismail, that she hasn’t forgotten.

After a night out with her friend, Farah was caught in a drive-by shooting outside the Bronco Smokehouse and Saloon. She died outside the bar after suffering a single gunshot wound, and the gunman was sentenced to nine years in prison. 

“Sweet was really attached to Natasha’s case. And then when he came to know us, he was comfortable with us,” Ismail says. “He was comfortable talking to me.”

After the investigation, Sweet and Ismail kept in contact. He was more than just a detective to Ismail — he was a friend. Sweet had gone so far as to clean and decorate Farah’s grave while Ismail was in Toronto. 

“What he did, it really touched me,” says Ismail. “He’s someone who cares so much about other people, how they are.”

Now that he is retired, after more than a quarter century spent seeing some of the worst the city had to offer, Sweet is determined to use the lessons he learned in his career to educate and help others. 

Finding new opportunities

One way he does this is by serving as board chair for the charity Gems for Gems, which works to help women who have survived domestic abuse. He helps in hosting events for the organization, such as programs for domestic abuse survivors and charity fundraisers.

Sweet started working with the charity after meeting its founder, Jordan Guildford, at a gala in support of a recently murdered woman whose case he had worked on. Since then, Sweet has become a valued part of Guildford’s organization. 

“He’s very strong, but he finds a way to be able to keep soft in a very hard world,” says Guildford. “And I know that the victims’ families always feel that.”

Gems for Gems also provides scholarships to survivors of domestic violence, to give women the opportunity to start fresh. These scholarships are named in honour of murdered women, all taken from Sweet’s extensive database of homicide cases. The scholarship recipient is then connected with the family of the lost woman.

“What Sweet looks for is a family that it would matter to, that their loved one is living on in their memory through this scholarship,” says Guildford.

Sweet also works to educate and pass on the knowledge he gained through his writing. To date, he has written one book, with two more on the way. His first novel, Skeletons in my Closet, serves as his memoirs, to pass his life experience on to the next generation.

“I learned lots of things over my career, and I think it’s important that I share those things so that others can learn from me,” says Sweet. “A lot of these lessons, they were earned. They didn’t come easily.”

The most important lesson learned from Sweet’s life of service is that anyone can help, that there are opportunities for everyone to step up and do their part. 

“If we want to enjoy safe, vibrant and healthy communities it is upon all of us,” says Sweet. “Step forward and take advantage of those opportunities as they come in front of us. You’re not too small to make a difference.”