Juneau police pedal to bike school
by Emily Russo Miller, the Juneau Empire, April 29, 2015
[Photo: Sgt. Chris Gifford leads Officers Brent Bartlett, Patrick Taylor, Steve Warnaca and Cody Held as they ride along the Back Loop Road on Tuesday as part of the Juneau Police Department's bicycle patrol training program. Michael Penn | Juneau Empire]
Juneau police officers put their bicycle pedals to the metal — hitting the trails, racing on the roads, jumping over curbs and bouncing up and down stairs — as part of the department’s bicycle training program Monday and Tuesday.
The Juneau Police Department is gearing up for summer, and they plan on having more officers than usual patrolling on two wheels.
“It’s not going to replace our cars, but there’s a lot of good uses for (bicycle patrolling),” JPD Chief Bryce Johnson said. “It makes the officers approachable and gives them a chance to talk to more people, and lots of good stuff with that.”
It didn’t quite feel like summertime during bike school. Unfortunately for the five officers in the class, the training happened to take place during the middle of an April rain shower, which in Juneau translates to a torrential downpour and unforgiving high winds.
“I put my rain gear on over (my uniform) because it was getting ridiculous,” Sgt. Chris Gifford, who is teaching the training alongside Johnson, said during a stop at Goat Hill Road at the end of the Auke Lake Trail. “We’re a little biked out right now, actually.”
By that point in the day Tuesday afternoon, the class had already biked the 4.9 miles to Herbert Glacier and back (not to mention the 10 hours they spent on bikes the day before). They hopped in the bike saddle again in the afternoon for what they called, perhaps a little sarcastically given the weather conditions, “The Great Amazing Race”: a 15-mile trek from a church in the valley to Goat Hill, then to the Mendenhall Glacier and finally to the fire training station near the DMV and troopers office.
At each of the three stops, they were required to perform tasks, such as riding down the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center pavilion stairs, changing out tires or inflating them at the end of the Auke Lake trail.
“Good job Officer Taylor, thank you,” Lt. Kris Sell, leading the Goat Hill station, told Officer Patrick Taylor after he took off his front tire and put it back on. “Make sure you get your brakes back on.”
The officers didn’t have much time to catch a breather before they were off again.
“Into the wind?” one asked, grimacing as he got back on his bike.
“Into the wind,” another confirmed.
“I’ve done a lot of bike schools, but never in rain like this,” Johnson quipped later. “Our guys are tougher than everyone else.”
Despite the gnarly rain, JPD officers are excited to start patrolling on bicycles once again. There won’t be a designated fleet, but officers will be encouraged to patrol by bicycle whenever possible on their shift.
Chief Johnson, who patrolled by bike for about four years as an officer and supervisor for the Salt Lake City Police Department before coming to Juneau two years ago, said there’s many reasons why patrolling on bicycle can be preferable to patrol vehicles. For one, it’s easier for people on the street to flag down an officer, even if it’s just to ask for directions.
“It’s much easier to talk to an officer on bike than an officer in a car,” he said. “They’re more approachable. They’re also highly visible so they’re noticed more.”
“It’s also a great way to do order maintenance crime enforcement, which is a lot of what goes on downtown, when you talk about open containers, that kind of thing,” he added.
Being on a bike also gives police access to places they wouldn’t ordinarily police in vehicles, such as trails, campgrounds and parks.
“We’d like the officers ... to get out and be visible on some of the trails, especially some of the ones in town: Perseverance, Brotherhood Bridge Trail,” Johnson said. “It’s a very usefully to get to areas that we’re not traditionally known for enforcing.”
JPD officers have patrolled on bicycles, in addition to police vehicles, for decades, and they already had about 10 bicycles stored around the station. Somewhere along the way, it fell out of favor. The only time JPD officers were seen on bicycles in recent years was during the Fourth of July celebration (and only then because the streets are so crowded with people and shut down for traffic, so it was nearly impossible to drive a patrol car.)
The last time JPD had bicycle patrol training was 2005, said Lt. David Campbell, who has been with JPD for almost 20 years.
“It’s always been a program since I’ve been here, but we’re really kind of hoping to ramp it up a little bit this year,” he said.
With Johnson’s enthusiasm for cycling — and other officers, such as Gifford and Sell who routinely bike for fun — JPD has incorporated bicycles more and more. Sell, for instance, started a bike safety program earlier this year called “Be Safe, Be Seen.” Johnson last summer gave out $5 to community members who spotted him riding on his bike to raise awareness for bicycle safety.
JPD expects that four officers will be routinely riding on bikes in downtown Juneau this summer: two of the beat officers who walk the downtown beat, the school resource officer and a reserve volunteer officer. The chief noted their patrol cars won’t be far away; they’ll be parked at the downtown police substation
“(If someone is arrested), we’ll walk the person back to the substation, or someone will stay with the person who was arrested while the other officer grabs the car and comes back, so that’s an easy thing to do,” he said. “We’re not going to put an arrested person on handlebars or something and ride him back.”
Another group of eight to 10 officers will be taking the bicycling patrol school next month as well.
“We’re excited for the summer to come, get some good weather and use the bikes for work,” Johnson said.