At training seminar for bike patrol officers, police find their footing on two wheels
By CHRIS MACHIAN/THE Omaha World-Herald, September 2, 2016
There’s a lot more to being a bike cop than pulling on a cool pair of cargo shorts, strapping on a gun belt and pedaling off to patrol a hip pedestrian district.
Good bike officers know how to maneuver a bicycle up and down steps and through crowds. They know how to talk to members of the public, use the bike to sneak up on suspects, and how to get off of a bike without taking their eyes off the person they are speaking to.
But learning those skills isn’t as easy as, well, riding a bike. Ideally, fledgling bike officers are trained by more veteran bike officers via formal training.
This week, 12 experienced bike police and security officers from around the country are in Omaha learning how to train other officers to work bike patrol. They’re learning how to impart what may have become instinctual over the years, and doing so in a way that is professional but not boring.
“This has been the most detailed, structured and difficult instructors’ class I’ve ever attended,” said Officer Kara Platt of the Omaha Police Department.
The weeklong training at the Omaha police and fire academy allows the officers to return to their own departments and put on the 32-hour International Police Mountain Bike Association training needed for their fellow officers to be certified in bicycle patrol.
The course teaches the officers the best ways to train others, and it puts them through some of the same scenarios they will one day run students through. It is one of about a half-dozen such courses being offered in the U.S. this year.
“You can’t teach what you can’t practice,” said Officer Jason Tarkong, who traveled more than 7,000 miles from the Northern Mariana Islands Department of Public Safety in the western Pacific for the training.
In one scenario demonstrated Thursday afternoon, a “suspect,” played by Officer Nate Keenan of the Omaha Police Department, was watching his ex-girlfriend’s house, but had committed no criminal act.
Two officers, Platt and Aaron Nelson of the University of Utah police, swept around the side of a building side by side on their bikes. Platt approached on foot, while Nelson stayed off to the side and watched, blocking any exit.
After Platt briefly questioned the man, instructor Mitch Trujillo of the Boulder, Colorado, Police Department halted the exercise. It had gone pretty much as it was supposed to — nothing much happened.
Trujillo asked the other students what they had seen in the approach. Someone noted an even pace. Another mentioned good communication.
Trujillo asked whether anyone had noticed when Platt had gotten off her bike — a potentially dicey part of an encounter such as this. Everyone said no. It had been seamless.
“That’s what we want it to be,” Trujillo told the group. “All this has to be unconscious competence.”
Watch the video: http://www.omaha.com/news/crime/at-training-seminar-for-bike-patrol-officers-police-find-their/article_7fc425d0-527a-59ff-bd84-0d2cbe35fa95.html