KLEW Community Heroes: Mikes on a Bike program
by Rasheeda Kabba, KLEW, Lewiston ID, Monday, October 28th 2019
LEWISTON, ID — "I look at this as one of the best things this department has done in a long time,” said Lewiston Police Chief Budd Hurd.
The Mike’s on a Bike program started earlier this year after the Lewiston City Council approved a community policing grant. It allows officers Mike Shore and Mike Rigney to use their bikes to navigate through homeless camps.
"You see and hear things that I didn't see 13 years driving a patrol car,” said Officer.
"What we started finding was we have more camps than we even knew about. Then we started identifying people,” Chief Hurd explained.
A big thing is identifying transient individuals and then pointing them in the right direction.
"I know you. "
"Yep."
"What's your name?"
"Have you guys ever been over to First Steps for Life? First Steps for life over there by Idaho Probation and Parole.
"We haven' been over there, no. But I know I look like (expletive) but I'm about over a week sober."
“Yeah, well that's kind of their specialty,” said Officer.
This job brings a lot of responsibility. It’s about making sure the homeless crisis doesn’t grow into something that can’t be policed.
"We're not over-run with it. I think that it's still not as bad as some of these other city cities you know, Spokane, Seattle, Portland, where it's not overwhelmed-but we want to try to prevent this kind of stuff."
It is how they go about it that makes the men in this program so special.
"How're you doing?
Good.
How are you?
Not so bad.
"How long you guys been down here?
"A couple hours."
"Oh really? Because you guys must've just got set up. It was probably about 7:30 when I came over here. You guys were sleeping so, I figured I'd let you guys sleep a little while and let the sun warm things up a little bit."
Chief Budd Hurd calling these officers the perfect men for the job. "They have the personality,” he says. “They enjoy talking to people. They really enjoy what they're doing right now."
This is the first year for the Mike’s on a Bike program.
Lewiston Police Chief Budd Hurd said it has already allowed the department to learn so much as a whole and they’ve received a lot of positive feedback.