Stowe police bike patrol good for safety, community connections
By Caleigh Cross | Stowe Reporter, September 22, 2016
Stowe VT -- Is it less intimidating for a police officer to approach you wearing a blue polo shirt and pedaling a bike than to glimpse the dreaded blue lights in your rear-view mirror?
Stowe police officer Steve Holbrook thinks so, and judging by his interactions with people while on bike patrol along the Stowe Recreation Path and on the Main Street drag, he’s on to something.
If Holbrook sees you texting or talking on your cellphone while driving on Main Street, he’s likely to ride his bike up to you and get your attention by waving near your window. People are surprised, he said, but they do pull over. Usually they’re surprised, or they try to deny they violated the state law on handheld cellphones while driving, but Holbrook’s gentle approach generally wins the day.
“I have a line. I say, ‘One of us is lying, me about seeing it or you about doing it. Which do you think it is?’ Most people will say, ‘Me,’” Holbrook said.
He hasn’t had to hand out a ticket on his bike — not even when a man who’d flipped him the bird on Main Street admitted he deserved one — but Holbrook says most people sheepishly listen to his warnings.
“There’s one woman who didn’t stop up at the elementary school” where there are three stop signs, Holbrook said. “I rode up to her and reminded her to stop. The next time, she drove through and came to a complete stop,” rolling down her window and letting Holbrook know she remembered.
“I find that if you can get people to smile, if you can connect with them and get them to relax for a minute,” it’s easier to enforce laws, Holbrook said, and the Stowe Police Department’s bike patrol program, which includes Main Street and the 5.3-mile stretch of the Stowe Recreation Path, is helping him do that.
When he uses a cruiser to pull someone over, Holbrook says some people are in tears by the time he gets to their window. On one memorable occasion, a woman was so upset that Holbrook asked her if everything was OK, and she said she’d been having a bad morning.
“It’s like, this is not a big event in your life,” Holbrook said with a smile, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “This doesn’t have to ruin your day.”
The woman, still crying, had to pull into Maplefield’s in Stowe to compose herself before continuing her journey.
On his bike, Holbrook says he doesn’t encounter such emotional reactions. He says part of it is likely due to his attire: On bike patrol, he wears a blue polo shirt emblazoned with “Stowe Police,” which is more casual than a full uniform.
“I’m still wearing my (bulletproof) vest, I still have extra ammunition,” Holbrook said, and his gun is still holstered at his waist, but something about the bike uniform disarms people and gives Holbrook a chance to make that critical connection.
Scraped knees to shoplifting
Holbrook says he sees a lot of little kids with scraped knees on the bike path.
“There was one little guy, he must have been around 5, who was really funny,” Holbrook said with a chuckle. He’d seen the boy between Chase Park and Thompson Park with his mother.
“There’s a side trail that’s filled with roots and kids usually think it’s a cool thing,” Holbrook said, but it can be dangerous for young riders or anyone going too fast. “I saw him lying under his bike and he was crying. He looked up at me and said, ‘Are you a policeman?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and he stopped crying and picked himself up and started walking around all tough, saying ‘I’m OK, I’m OK.’”
The boy thought it was “pretty cool” when Holbrook wrapped a big bandage around his bleeding right knee.
“Little boys especially like big Band-Aids,” Holbrook said.
It’s not all boo-boos and bandages on the bike patrol, though.
“I have a good time, but it can be pretty serious,” Holbrook said. “I keep my cop sense going.”
Holbrook’s “cop sense” has served him well, especially in a recent incident in which, from his bike, he saw a man shoplifting from Shaw’s General Store on Main Street.
“I was on the south side of Main Street and I saw a man and a woman in their mid-20s having a verbal confrontation,” Holbrook said. “I watched for about 10 or 15 minutes. They weren’t disturbing anyone but they were obviously disagreeing.”
The man started moving things around in two bags he was carrying and both went into Shaw’s.
“I thought it was odd, so I stayed in the area. The guy came out after 10 minutes and he went on the porch” before ducking down Depot Street and crouching near an embankment, Holbrook said. “I saw a cribbage set in a box with the price tag and asked if I could look in the bag.”
The man ran through the alley between Pall Spera’s Main Street office and Shaw’s General Store. Holbrook let him go. “I had evidence and a witness,” he explained.
There hasn’t yet been an arrest in the Shaw’s case, but Holbrook confirmed the man had stolen several items.
Holbrook says he gets the chance to save the day often enough. One day earlier this summer, the skies threatened a storm, trapping 28 kids from Mud City Adventures in the rain.
“I told them to get inside,” Holbrook said, and shepherded the kids and their camp counselors into the stone gazebo about halfway down the rec path. “They were all crammed in there,” he said, but they were safe.
Holbrook fields a variety of requests for directions and restaurant recommendations, and sees that as a valuable way to interact with the community.
“That’s another thing I do,” Holbrook said. Another: Steering parched travelers to one of the four water fountains along the Stowe Recreation Path.
Pedal power
Stowe Police Chief Donald Hull said the bike program was born a couple of years ago when the police department took over the duties of the animal control officer.
Last year, the police department bought a second bike to expand the program. Officers who don’t want to ride bikes can opt to do foot patrol instead.
“This year we really put a focus on it,” Hull said. “We wanted to have an officer visible on the bike path. The idea was to provide some visibility. A lot of people are recreating there. It’s about safety and community relations.”
Holbrook thinks the program is doing some good.
“You can’t quantify our effect, because it’s like proving a negative, but it’s beyond just a feel-good thing,” Holbrook said. “It’s a good thing. It’s hard to say how many incidents I’ve prevented.”
Other people agree. Ronny Stelly works at Stowe Public House on Main Street and says Holbrook comes in once in a while.
“Guys on bikes seem more approachable,” Stelly said. “Steve’s come in here and talked to us. They provide better service on Main Street (on bikes), especially when the arson stuff was going on. We really needed that extra set of eyes.”
Morristown’s patrol
The Morristown Police Department also has a bike patrol.
Police Chief Richard Keith said the department has had bikes for a full decade, but it runs bike patrols only when it has enough people. Last year, there weren’t enough.
This year, though, three officers take turns parking their police cruiser at night and riding around on their bikes for an hour or two — in downtown Morrisville, in the north end of town and on the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, among other places.
“They’re all over,” he said, “when time allows.”
Keith can’t recall any specific incidents that Morrisville’s bike patrol has stopped, but says the bike patrols are “absolutely” beneficial.
“We’re just letting people know we’re out there on our bikes,” Keith said.