IPMBA News

The bike cop: Bicycle patrols connect police chief to public

by Larry Hobbs, The Brunswick News, April 25, 2016

Brunswick Police Chief Kevin Jones rides along George Street near its intersection with Lee Street Friday during one of his regular bike patrols through the city.  Photo by Michael Hall, The Brunswick News.

Brunswick GA -- Roosevelt Johnson stopped pedaling and rolled to a stop Friday afternoon, greeting his buddy the bicycle cop with a smile at the corner of Lee and George streets in Brunswick’s Dixville neighborhood.

The two stood straddling their bikes at the street corner, exchanging the usual pleasantries. Then Johnson cut to the chase.

“Yes, sir, I seen in the paper that y’all got a whole bunch of them — them gang-bangers,” said Johnson, dressed in blue collar denim from neck to ankle. “The neighborhood needed cleaning up.”

“Yes, sir,” the cop said, leaning casually on the handle bars. “We’re working on it. It’s making a difference, slowly but surely.”

A couple more minutes of friendly banter followed, then Johnson rolled on down George Street with a thanks and a wave. The two have held several similar chats in the past, though it is doubtful that the elderly gentleman even knows his buddy the bicycle cop is Brunswick Police Chief Kevin Jones.

That is fine with Jones. His regular bicycle patrols into the streets of Brunswick are more about the badge and the message than any rank or protocol. With a bicycle, a smile and a handshake, Jones believes police might do more to improve Brunswick than all those “gangbanger” arrests that grab the headlines.

“I’d do this full time if they’d let me,” the chief said, rolling slowly through the curve at the bottom of George Street. “Just getting out into the community and talking to folks, seeing what’s going on. That’s the best part of it; it’s real policing. Folks talk to you, you’ve just got to stop and ask what’s going on. They’re all nice and friendly. From the well-off sections like So-Glo (South of Gloucester) to the poorer sections, it doesn’t matter. People are people.”

At least once a week, Jones tries to leave his office behind, don his police uniform biking shorts and get out among the people he serves. Sometimes it is only for a couple of hours; other times, he can spend the better part of a day out there.

He spent most of Friday’s four-hour patrol in working class and hardscrabble neighborhoods such as Dixville. Like Roosevelt, a lot of folks wanted to talk to the bicycle cop about Brunswick’s big crime news this week. A major law enforcement sweep netted federal drug and gun charges Wednesday against 19 Brunswick residents, alleged members of the notorious nationwide Bloods street gang. The alleged gangsters are accused of using guns and violence to protect a thriving crack cocaine enterprise that operated out of homes from here to Darien.

It is folks like those who give some Brunswick neighborhoods a bad name. But Jones knows it is good folks like Sabrina Sanders who make up the heart and soul of most all sections of the city. Sanders greeted Jones from the tidy screened-in porch of her home on the west end of Albemarle Street.

“Now they got those crazy drive-bys going on, that gets my nerves all tied up,” Sanders said, referring to a rash of incidents involving gunfire in recent weeks. “But our neighborhood is quiet. This is a good area.”

“Well, if you have any problems, you know what to do,” Jones said.

“Oh, I will,” Sanders said. “I don’t mind calling police — the neighbors all call me ‘Neighborhood Watch.’”

“We like that,” Jones said.

Sanders enjoys a bike ride now and then herself, she said. Jones invited her to join him sometime, getting off his bike and bringing her a card with a number to call to set it up.

“I’ll ride with you — I’ll ride to the end of the world with you,” Sanders said, waving goodbye to Jones.

And that is how this bicycle shift went. No police jargon. No reports filed. No fingerprints taken. Just another friendly encounter with a cop, an opportunity for folks to see that the man behind the badge is a regular guy. It was an eager and welcome encounter most everywhere Jones stopped on Friday.

At the Hopkins Homes subsidized housing development, two women mentioned that things have been quiet lately. “We’ve taken some of the bad guys and put them in jail,” Jones said.

Keep it up, the ladies said. One of the women was a visitor, but said she would be pleased if Jones would check on her unit in the Abbott Andrews Terrace subsidized housing development.

“Y’all keep riding through here, and it’ll be good,” the other woman said.

An hour later, Jones cut through the Abbott Andrews Terrace development and pedaled past the woman’s residence. All was clear, but Jones kept his promise to check. A few houses down on Cleburne Street, Jones stopped to chat with a family taking in groceries.

“I ain’t seen nothing wrong this visit,” said one young lady, indicating she had spoken with the bicycle cop before.

Minor personal connections like this can have a meaningful impact in the long run, Jones believes. During a previous visit with the elderly Johnson, three young men nearby quickly retreated upon the cop’s arrival. But one of them returned.

“He starts talking about fishing, and guess what? I love fishing,” Jones said. “Now we have something in common. I’m not a white guy standing in his neighborhood, he’s not a young black man. We’re now just two guys talking about something in common. He knows I’m a cop, but guess what? After a couple of minutes none of that mattered any more. We were just two people standing there talking, building a connection. I hope I see that young man again.”

Such early introductions just might make the difference in a boy growing up to wear gang colors, or a police badge. Jones keeps open lines of communication with Pastor John Fields of First Jordan Grove Missionary Baptist Church, a community leader and president of the local NAACP. He encourages Fields to help him find police officer material in these neighborhoods, the same streets where some of the department’s current top cops grew up.

“This is where we have gotten a few of our best police officers, home-grown police officers,” Jones said. “They know the community, they know the people and they care.”

In more than 20 years with the Brunswick Police Department, Jones has taken it upon himself to know the community, to know the people, and to care. In one capacity or another, he has been using the same sturdy police-issue bicycle to patrol this city throughout his tenure with the force.

It shows. Later on, he stops to chat with some folks outside enjoying the pretty day. He asks if they have had any problems.

“We’ve been hearing all the bad stuff, but it’s been quiet here,” said retired school teacher Florence Butler, taking a break from gardening in her immaculate front yard on Goodyear Avenue.

“Yes, ma’am, we’ve just made quite a few arrests here recently,” the bicycle cop tells her.

“Yeah, I heard — we’re proud of you all,” she said.

Then he started a conversation over the fence with Butler’s son-in-law, Walter Jones Sr. Not to be confused, it turns out, with Walter Jones Jr., a former Brunswick police officer who once rode patrol with the bicycle cop. A funny memory about the two young cops eating a whole bucket of spicy chicken wings ensues, drawing hearty laughter at the fence line.

Further down the road he spoke with two more familiar faces, a couple of men enjoying an afternoon off beneath a work shed in a side yard on Wolfe Street.

“Holler if you need anything,” Jones said.

“You know we will.”

Jones’ bike patrol eventually came out on T Street near Norwich Street on the north end of Brunswick. This is where the ride-along ended for a reporter who had shadowed Jones on this patrol.

“Do me one favor when you write this,” Jones says over a parting handshake. “Don’t make this about me. Make it about these people. They are what matters here.”

Sure, chief, sure. No need to bother, really. That bicycle cop, he makes it about these people every time he rolls on these streets.

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