Graham PD revives bike patrol
The Graham Police Department bike patrol is back, stronger than ever.
by Casey Holder, October 19, 2015, Graham Leader, Graham TX
The Graham Police Department bike patrol is back on track after a brief hiatus.
Clad in gray shirts, shorts and helmets, GPD Officers Robert San Miguel and Chris Denney patrolled Newton Field on the department's two newest rides, a set of black Force Police Bikes, while the Steers defeated Gainesville on Friday, Oct. 9. The bike patrol unit provides several advantages for the department, San Miguel said.
The Friday outing marked the revitalized unit's first official patrol after some downtime following the 2014 retirement of former bike patrol unit leader Terry Vanlandingham. San Miguel has since taken the reins, and on Oct. 6 led five GPD officers through a four-hour course to certify them as bike patrol officers. With the new officers, the unit has a total of eight certified patrolmen.
“I talked to Chief (Tony Widner) about reviving it, because it's a good tool to have for all the special events we have here, patrolling, sneaking up on people — it's not like a car where you can hear the motor coming a mile away,” San Miguel said.
Advantages
The department hopes to deploy the unit at large public events, such as football games and the Lion's Club annual carnival, and officers appreciate the element of surprise and the close vantage point offered by the quiet machines.
“A lot of times on a bicycle, you'll see and hear things a lot more clearly then you do sitting in a vehicle,” San Miguel said. “You're in close, you're in close with the community. You see a lot more.”
Halloween offers a great example of a use for the patrol. San Miguel is hoping to implement the patrolmen on the holiday night in areas with high trick-or-treater traffic, such as Roanoake Drive.
“We haven't done that in a couple of years, but doing it before, it really, really helped,” he said. “It gets congested over there. We were used a lot for traffic control, having to untie the traffic jams.”
Furthermore, the bikes give officers a covert advantage when patrolling for burglaries, a problem in Graham from time to time.
“If burglaries do start to come back up again — right now it's great because they're down. But if they come back up again, we'll utilize (the bikes) in patrol,” San Miguel said. “It's a great tool to go through alleys. They don't ever know you're coming.”
In 2013, San Miguel used his bike in an alley to successfully pursue and apprehend a subject with methamphetamine who fled from another officer at a football game.
“We were able to locate him in the alley, and we held him up for patrol to get there,” he said. “It's just a great tool to have because the bad guys don't expect it.”
Along with the stealth factor, bike patrol officers serve as great public relations arm for the department. More than one citizen has thanked the officers for patrolling dark streets filled parked cars surrounding Newton Field on Fridays, San Miguel said. And, it's a novelty for the young ones.
“I think the kids love it,” he said. “They love seeing the cops on bikes. They look at the bikes, and you just see their eyes get big and they're like ‘a real police bike.' It's really cool.”
Training
Officers have to go through an eight-hour course that involves field and classroom training and show proficiency on a bicycle before they can be certified to patrol on the two-wheeler.
To be certified, officers must show that they can descend stairs, carry their bikes up and down stairs, complete a 10-mile ride and execute a hook slide — a maneuver where a patrolmen slides the wheels of his bike to surround a subject the officer is approaching.