Police bicycle patrols yield big advantages
By Dave Hilliard, the Daily Item, Jul 10, 2021
The Sunbury Police Department increased its visibility and level of communication with the residents it protects on July 2, the first day Sunbury Police Officer Aaron Doyle jumped on his bicycle and started pedaling along city streets.
There is so much more, experts say. Police Chief Brad Hare, who reinitiated the program, and members of his police force will find tactical advantages in their constant pursuit of law enforcement any time that Officer Doyle is on bicycle patrol.
“I love how accessible this makes me to the public,” Doyle told us. “It’s great to stop and talk with people.”
Chief Hare said riding a bicycle is the perfect way to do that. “So, I sent Officer Doyle to bike school for policing and he is enjoying the weather and riding around meeting with people.”
The department hasn’t used the bicycle program since 2010 due to a shortage of manpower, but donations to the city from the former Sunbury Textile Mill enabled the department to purchase Cannondale mountain bikes equipped with lighting and other features specifically designed for police.
Milton Police Chief Curt Zettlemoyer said his department also has a bicycle patrol program and they use them as much as possible. “It’s a great tool to have,” and one that immediately attracts the interest of children, Chief Zettlemoyer said. “It’s a great way for us to get out and meet people.”
It also provides tactical advantages for police officers, said Maureen Becker, executive director of the International Police Mountain Bike Association, based in Baltimore, Maryland.
“They (bicycle patrol officers) are really aware of their surroundings, because when you are on a bicycle, you’re going more slowly and you’re listening, and you see things and you smell things that you may not be able to pick up when you’re in a patrol car,” Becker said in a recent article published by “Officer,” a magazine and website covering law enforcement news.
Becker also noted that a bicycle police officer can get places faster because they can do things that patrol cars cannot, such as riding on the sidewalk, cutting across a parking lot, through a wooded area, over a bike trail or within narrow pathways en route to an incident.
From a tactical standpoint, bicycle officers also can be stealthy, quietly approaching a crime in progress from an unexpected angle or direction while potentially not being immediately recognized as a police officer, Becker notes.
We congratulate the Sunbury and Milton police departments on their bicycle patrol initiatives and look forward to seeing and talking with the pedal patrol officers in these and perhaps other Valley communities.
Communication with citizens is clearly one of the best attributes.
“It’s not the average person who goes and knocks on the window of a patrol car,” Becker noted, “but people will go up and talk to an officer on a bicycle.”
NOTE: Opinions expressed in The Daily Item’s editorials are the consensus of the publisher, top newsroom executives and community members of the editorial board. Today’s was written by Digital Editor Dave Hilliard.