New Community Policing Strategy Ready To Roll Out
Bike, Foot Patrols Begin Next Month
By Tom Robb, the Journal & Topic, on May 16, 2018
A new force of non-sworn Niles police community service officers will hit the streets on foot and bicycle early next month as part of a new community policing strategy.
Starting the week of Friday, June 1, community service officers will be deployed on foot to business districts throughout Niles while community service officers will be deployed on bicycles in residential neighborhoods in 10 beats throughout the village.
The goal of the program is for community service officers to build relationships with business owners, managers and employees in business districts and people, primarily teenagers and young adults, in residential areas to increase communications and preemptively solve problems before they escalate.
Where sworn police officers are armed and wear dark blue shirts, community service officers wear gray shirts and a different patch.
Niles Police Cmdr. Robert Tornabene, who heads the police Crime Prevention Bureau, said although community service officers have the authority to issue parking tickets and village ordinance violation citations, both business district foot patrol and residential bike patrol officers would have the goal of building relationships and solving problems without issuing citations.
The village has a core of community service officers who perform duties including administrative office functions, traffic control, crowd control at events and other duties. Niles trustees recently reclassified auxiliary police officers to become community service officers as well.
Tornabene said although staffing levels could fluctuate, given community events, generally two, two-man teams of community service officers would be assigned to business districts each day.
The business district community service officers would work with businesses to build relationships to address and solve issues ranging from parking to credit card fraud and identity theft to issues of customers leaving behind wallets, cell phones and car keys at store counters.
Part of building those relationships would include keeping key holder lists up to date. Police need to be able to quickly contact business owners or managers when doors are found unlocked or when other issues arise.
Police have trained four community service bike patrol officers, mostly teenagers, to fan out on bikes across residential neighborhoods primarily Thursdays through Sundays through September when many younger community service officers would return to school.
The primary goal of these officers will be to build relationships with teens and young adults, preemptively solving problems. Bike community service officers would also be present at community block parties and other community events.
Niles ran a similar bike patrol program decades ago. Before becoming a police officer and rising through the ranks, retired former Niles Police Chief Dennis McEnerney worked as a non-sworn bicycle officer as a teen in the 1970s.
Niles police also run a separate bicycle unit of regular sworn police officers not part of this program.