Leaner-Faster-Friendly
by Saira Peesker
This article appeared August 3, 2012, on Openfile.ca.
As an officer on Toronto Police’s bike squad, Lisa Ferris has one of the most coveted positions in the force.
Cruising the streets with Lisa Ferris is like taking a holiday from many of the stresses that normally come with cycling in Toronto’s downtown. While we still have to watch for streetcar doors and oblivious pedestrians, no one yells at us from car windows. No one blasts the horn because we’ve taken a lane. The police standing guard at construction sites wave cheerful hellos as we pass.
This friendlier world we’ve biked into, however, appears to hinge on one crucial element: Ferris is a bike cop. Part crime fighter and part cyclist, bicycle policing is a unique experience that stands apart from either category on its own. Seen as more approachable and less intimidating than cops who drive cruisers, yet with enough authority to prevent the harassment that the average cyclist takes for granted, it’s no wonder being on the bike squad is one of the most sought-after jobs in police forces across Canada.
In Toronto, says Sgt. Ferris, loads of officers often vie for the few open spots on the bike squad, seeing it as a way to have closer interaction with the public while developing the thighs of steel that come with eight or nine daily hours on a bike. In Calgary as well, bike gigs are far from posts for peons—they are “very sought-after,” says program coordinator Sgt. Todd McNutt.
“Whenever a spot comes up, I get lots and lots of applications,” he says. “It’s the mobility, it’s the work...If you’re active at all, who wouldn’t want that?”
While not all urban police forces in Canada have dedicated bike units, almost all use cycling officers for crowd control at public events, at the absolute least. Vancouver is one of the cities without a dedicated bike team—the squad was phased out during cutbacks in the early 2000s—but according to former two-wheeled officer Sgt. Randy Fincham, it too was once a top pick among force members.
“It was a desirable job, for sure,” says Fincham, from one of Canada’s few cities where bicycling doesn’t take on a miserable edge in winter. “I had to put myself on a list to wait for a position to open up.”
The officers in Ferris’14 Division satellite station, nestled away from the city’s hustle and bustle on the lake-front fairgrounds, seem to share a keen sense of the privilege they enjoy. Tasked with creating their own work plans, Toronto bike squad officers can choose to focus their attentions on areas in their division that have been giving them trouble, or those where troublemakers are hanging out. They aren’t required to respond to radio calls, but often do if they’re in the neighbourhood, Ferris says.
It’s a jovial atmosphere in the cramped station as she and a colleague banter about the sweat-induced salt-stains on their bulletproof vests, close calls between wheels and streetcar tracks and their relief that I wasn’t from their newspaper nemesis, The Toronto Star. And it all happens under the dim light of a banker’s lamp with a stuffed crow on top.
“If you were writing for The Toronto Star, we’d probably ask you to leave. Just kidding. Or am I?” says the mouthy-but-pleasant Const. Cameron Ross, working the desk at the station that day. I’ve come to join Ferris on a ride-along, a notion Ross quickly dismisses as unlikely to give me the inside look I’m hoping for.
“If I was doing a ride-along with you, I probably wouldn’t take you to some areas for your safety,” he says, something Ferris later confirms. Instead, we ride leisurely along downtown streets and graffiti-covered alleyways, often side-by-side unless busy traffic dictates otherwise. I don’t get to see her stop anyone, let alone witness any arrests, but I do get a sense for how tiring it can be to spend all day on the proverbial treadmill while stopping at every single stop sign.
A recent transfer to the bike squad who hasn’t yet braved the winter, Ferris tells me she loves the job because of the interaction with the community. She says bike officers see things you’d miss in a car, and get to know people along their routes in a way they never would behind a steering wheel.
Plus, it’s way easier to bust pot smokers: you can smell them from a mile away, and can get really close to them before they even notice you.
Halifax Regional Police Const. Brian Palmeter says he’s seen similar benefits in his city, where officers who have had bicycle training can choose to ride their beats.
“You can do checks of parks; you can do a quicker check of backyards if you’re chasing someone; you are covert,” says the public information officer, who rode in a previous position.
“You can go up to people in full uniform, and nobody really recognizes you’re an officer until you come right up to them.”
Palmeter also voiced a sentiment shared by nearly every officer who spoke with OpenFile for this story: Members of the public feel inherently more comfortable around bicycle police officers than those in cars. They want to know how much they bike in a day, how hard it is to get in shape, and many other questions an average cyclist might think to ask a peer.
“If I am pulled up on the side of the road in a cruiser with my window down, people are hesitant to talk to you,” he says, adding that to do effective police work, “you want people to talk to you.”
When asked if more bike officers in Toronto’s priority areas would be a better gang-intervention solution than adding more cruisers, Ferris deflects the question with a definite maybe. But in Calgary, McNutt says he believes a drastic increase in bicycle police is largely accountable for a huge reduction of crime in that city’s downtown.
“About five to eight years ago, our downtown core was really an issue,” he says. “There were places people just wouldn’t go. The chief decided to bring back beat officers and bike officers, and...almost overnight that community has gone 180 degrees. We’re victims of our own success downtown because now we’re always looking for new things to do.
“My bike guys, it’s amazing how many people they know downtown,” he said, describing an incident where some cycling officers had cornered a bank robber in an alley before the suspect had even noticed they were there. “They’ll have a suspect before (a crime) is even over.”
In a town still scarred by what many see as police brutality during the G20 Summit of June 2010, Sgt. Ferris seems like a perfect antidote to the anti-authority sentiment that remains in some corners. She’s the type of multi-layered individual who has bravely arrested robbers in the act, but who also worries hockey might be too dangerous for her young child.
The true desire to work with the community, not against them, is a necessity for a good bicycle officer, says Palmeter. Fortunately, it’s also the type of person who often seeks out this kind of work, he adds.
Fincham says he actually looks forward to talking to the people who interrupted his breaks he would take on park benches, mid-way through his shift.
And Calgary’s McNutt sounds almost religious about the changes in both his city and in the officers who end up policing it by bike, describing the job as a “life-changing experience” that has made many healthier, better cops.
The funny thing is, he says, his department had no idea they’d see so many benefits when they first put officers on bikes.
“It’s a softer approach, and it just kind of happened by accident,” he says.
“Those guys are capable of doing anything a car crew could do... and it breaks down a lot of barriers.
“I’m convinced you could effectively police the downtown core with 75 per cent bikes.”
OpenFile is a community-powered news organization operating in six Canadian cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. Saira Peesker is an OpenFile reporter based in Toronto, covering everything from local weirdness to federal politics. Her work has also appeared in NOW Magazine and the Peterborough Examiner; and on Torontoist, CTVNews.ca and Proud FM. In her spare time, she skates in counter-clockwise circles with Toronto Roller Derby, and writes “Jammer Time”, The AV Club Toronto's monthly roller derby column.