Brooklyn police officer takes to his bicycle every chance he gets
Photo: Officer Dan Meadows gives Aiden Nelson, left, and Lennon Larson a police sticker while patrolling the area near the stadium. (Mark Holan/special to cleveland.com)
By Mark Holan, cleveland.com , July 10, 2016
BROOKLYN, Ohio – Officer Dan Meadows can often be seen making the rounds on his bicycle whenever he can. He is one of the nine officers who ride bikes instead of riding around in squad cars policing the city.
"It gets me out of the box," Meadows said in reference to the squad car. "Residents react to you differently when you ride up to them on a bicycle."
Meadows has been on the Brooklyn police force since 1999, and he is now the school resources officer for the Brooklyn City School District.
"During the school year, I make sure that the kids are getting to and from school safely. They get to know you, and you get to know them."
He will usually drive a squad car with his bicycle on the rack to a central location in the city and park it. If the weather's good, he'll ride for an hour or two and get back in the squad car to finish his shift.
On a recent afternoon, Meadows rode up Ridge Road from the station and patrolled Ridge Park Square. Shoppers did a double take when they spotted him. "How's it going?" Meadows asked anyone he passed. They all seemed pleasantly surprised to see a police officer riding a bicycle.
Meadows said it's all about community policing, and when he gets on his bicycle and rides down a residential street, it's a way of showing residents a different way of protecting them.
With Meadows' bike patrols, there are no signs of the antagonism between officers and residents that seems to be in the daily news reports. A simple "hello" immediately defuses the tension between the two. It's a radical shift in an officer's approach to policing.
Riding through the old Brookridge School site later that afternoon, Meadows ran into two boys walking through the area. One of them was Lennon Larson, 9, of Parma, who was with his stepbrother, Aiden Nelson, 10, of Brooklyn. They were on their way to go swimming at the Recreation Center.
"You know you can cut through the park over there instead of walking all the way to Ridge and north to Memphis," Meadows told the boys. "Come on, I'll show you. Follow me."
One of the boys' plastic bag containing his towel and cell phone rips open as they are crossing the creek in Memorial Park. "I think I have a backpack for you," Meadows said and motioned to the boys to follow him to his squad car parked by the police station.
Rummaging through the trunk of his squad car, Meadows found a backpack that had his own belongings. He dumped out the backpack and gave it to the boys.
"Thanks," they said.
"You guys want some water?" Meadows asked.
"Yeah," Nelson said.
Meadows grabbed two bottles of ice cold water from the cooler he always has in the squad car. He handed them to the boys, who scurried off to an afternoon of swimming.
At a time when police officers have become targets of hatred, the actions of one police officer in Brooklyn showed two young boys kindness and friendship on a warm summer afternoon.