You might struggle to pronounce his name, but Glen Innes' newest police officer set out on his first patrol last week saying he wanted to show the kinder face of the force.
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Brendan Vielhaur - pronounced veal-how-er - graduated the academy last fortnight and joined the Glen Innes station for his first patrol last Thursday.
The Hawkesbury boy said the his biggest biggest surprise on the force so far: how cerebral the NSW police training is these days.
"They've been doing it for almost 150 years or so so I'm sure they've got it down pat (by now)," he laughed.
"It's good to see that they're trying to push a lot more academics into the academy so that was the surprising part."
The probationary police officer was part of an injection of six new cops into the New England, with recruits heading to Inverell, Moree and Armidale.
Officer Vielhaur said fully half of his class of 269 students went bush, with the other half sent to metropolitan commands after the 177 policemen and 92 policewomen graduated eight months training in Goulburn.
"At the start I just want to get my feet landed and learn as much as I possibly can," he said.
"I've been sent out to a smaller town in Glen. I want to do a bit more community policing and just try to help everyone to the best of my ability and hopefully just be a fair cop."
He's the first police officer in the family, but he said the service ethos was attractive.
"The main reason why I'd like to join police force is just to experience something new every day.
"I know I'm going to see some stuff and hear some things and do things that a lot of people wouldn't want to at all but at this current time it doesn't faze me."
Colleague Brad Wood said that the Thursday night patrol would be a pretty quiet one, with the pair taking a truck to check up on noise complaints, pubs and following calls.
Glen Innes police station has had great success in mitigating domestic violence, reducing assaults by around half since their peak in 2016, with just 48 in a year to March.
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