Earning the Badge: Training wheels come off
By Jeremy Arias, Frederick News Post, March 19, 2018
Photo: Police academy recruit Tyler Branche learns to handle a bicycle on stairs Tuesday along Carroll Creek Linear Park, simulating conditions he will encounter while on bike patrol. Staff photo by Dan Gross
Frederick MD -- Frederick police academy instructor Officer Dan Sullivan smiled as he looked over a group of five recruits as they prepared to begin a 15-mile bicycle course into the city.
“All right, who’s not making it back?” Sullivan asked as Sgt. Kevin Meyer, another instructor, walked up and also began surveying the crowd on March 13.
After a moment’s consideration, the sergeant selected one of the recruits, Hagerstown police hopeful Tyler Branche, at random.
“Branche,” Meyer said, laughing as the recruit’s head snapped up at the sound of his name. “Branche ain’t making it back.”
“What’s that, sir?” Branche replied, quick to take up the challenge.
Despite the ribbing — Meyer might argue because of it — Branche was moving along fine a few minutes later and 2 miles down the road as the recruits eased to a stop in front of the golf range off East Patrick Street.
“I drank a lot of water and ate a lot of carbs last night,” the recruit said, catching his breath in the face of a blustery wind. “So I’m good.”
Having survived four months of classes on everything from firearms and hand-to-hand combat drills, as well as being tackled by a police dog and shocked with a Taser, many of the recruits secretly doubted there would be much challenge in a 2½-day course designed around bicycles.
“I honestly thought, going into bike school, I’ve been riding a bike since I was 5 years old, what more could you possibly teach me?” recruit Alexander DeAngelis said when the group broke to eat lunch along Carroll Creek Linear Park later that afternoon.
Then, on the first day of the course, Cpl. Brian Wolf introduced the recruits to the cone course.
“I fell, probably about 10 minutes into it, and I realized, ‘Wow, this is a big difference from what I’m used to,’” DeAngelis said.
Having run the Frederick Police Department’s bike patrol program since 2003, Wolf was accustomed to the skepticism. He tries to be gentle, but most officers who go through the training end up with a few scrapes and bruises by the time the cones are packed up.
Riding on a relatively straight path at a consistent speed — what most people think of when it comes to riding a bike — is quite easy, Wolf admitted. The cone course was different, tasking recruits with maintaining their balance at a much slower pace while weaving between cones, Wolf said.
“A bike is harder to control when it’s riding slow, and this is to mimic if we are riding in a crowd of people, that we are able to control the bike and move around and not run over anybody,” Wolf said.
Wolf also had the recruits practice riding as fast as they can in a course set up around the academy, only to ditch their bikes when they reach the gun range, where they are told to immediately begin running.
The exercise is designed to simulate what bike-mounted officers may have to do in a chase, Wolf said. It is also fun for the instructors to watch the recruits stumble and fall as they misjudge the amount of time it takes for blood to be redirected from their quadriceps back into their hamstrings, the corporal added with a grin.
The transition from steadily pedaling at a high speed to suddenly running, a completely different motion, can also throw the brain for a loop, all of which usually results in a few more falls for the recruits.
The long ride into the city on the second day of the course adds distance to the equation, as well as real-life obstacles. Throughout the day, the recruits practiced riding up and down stairs, weaving up wheelchair ramps and navigating narrow alleys in tight formation.
“We also show them the advantage of using the bike where you’re able to interact with people walking on the city sidewalks. ... Obviously, you have that on foot, but you can move from point A to point B, cover more ground and theoretically make contact with more people [on a bike], so that community policing that most agencies strive to promote is increased with a bike patrol,” Wolf said.
Another advantage provided by a bike is increased access to alleyways and walkways like the promenade along the creek that are closed to officers confined to a cruiser, Wolf said. The lower profile and maneuverability of bicycles can even lead to police coming across crimes in progress.
“The last class we were riding through an apartment complex and one of the recruits stopped me to tell me she’d just seen a hand-to-hand,” Wolf said with a laugh, referring to a drug transaction.
By the time the course came to an end, most of the recruits had developed at least a grudging respect for the advantages of a bike-mounted police officer.
Others, like DeAngelis, even acknowledged to developing an interest in joining a bike unit later in their careers.
“Absolutely, without a doubt,” DeAngelis said when asked whether he would consider putting in for Westminster Police Department’s bike patrol when he joins that department after graduation. “... It’s kind of crazy how much you can learn in just the span of eight hours and how much you can really do on these bikes.”