Support the Mission

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by Michael A. Wear, PCI #516T-B/EMSCI #059T-B
Metropolitan (DC) Police Department
IPMBA Education Director

What is IPMBA to you and your agency: an answer to your training needs, a tool, a guide, a resource or a means to reduce liability? Hopefully there are many ways IPMBA assists you and your agency. Ultimately, individual goals revolve around promoting and serving your agency, specifically, your bike program and the ideals of IPMBA training.

I have enjoyed more than 30 years of public safety service, along with 21 years of military service. I am proud of my accomplishments and am always seeking new adventures. Bikes have been a huge part of my professional and personal being. I believe cycling is a lifestyle and my personal mission is to include it in several facets of my life. Here are a few examples: a bike tour of Berlin while on a family vacation; cycling to support traffic control and first aid for road marches while serving as a drill sergeant; as a Boy Scouts Cycling Merit Badge Counselor; and, to honor my profession, organizer of and participant in the Metropolitan Police Officers’ Memorial Rides.

In 1998, I joined IPMBA and accepted what has since become our official mission: to promote the use of bikes for public safety, provide resources and networking opportunities, and offer the best, most complete training for public safety cyclists.

An example of how I implemented the mission within my own agency was first to create the training requirement that bike team members must complete and pass the IPMBA Police Cyclist course. I constantly promoted IPMBA and the benefits of training meeting with success eight “short years” later. Next I pushed our Mountain Bike Training Team to endorse and encourage the agency to use bikes in new ways, such as Tactical Teams, Community Events, Civil Disturbance, and Active Shooter Response.

I personally became heavily involved with not only my agency’s bike unit training and development of bike usage, but I also began teaching at the IPMBA Conference as well as overseas. I became involved with the Education Committee and contributed to the development of new and updated public safety cyclist course curricula.

Through IPMBA, I have had the great pleasure to meet and work with many who share the same passion to promote our mission. Most recently, I had the opportunity participate in the COPSWEST Conference in Sacramento, California. This was an excellent experience that opened my eyes to the need to focus attention on and respond to the growing usage of the E-bike within public safety circles. This is not a brand-new concept, but one that is emerging and clearly evolving.

Assigned to the IPMBA Booth, I joined dedicated member Clint Sandusky, retired from the Riverside Community College (CA) Police Department. Clint is the “powering” voice of the IPMBA “E-Bike Task Force”, voluntarily supporting our efforts in researching this topic with unrelenting energy. If you want to know more about him, visit http://ipmba.org/blog/comments/retired-police-deputy-enjoys-ebikes. ;

The role is simple enough, but we need more of you to accept the Mission, and it is not impossible. This past fall, I had an incredible opportunity to be involved in a symposium on Bicycle Response Teams held in Columbia, South Carolina. I was invited to participate by Corporal Joseph Dupree, an IPMBA Instructor with the University of South Carolina Division of Law Enforcement and Safety. It was an amazing event from start to finish, highlighted by the support of local families and a spectacular lunch (unbelievably delicious southern fried chicken, with all the trimmings).

Similar to the roundtable held at the Annual IPMBA Conference (April 8-13, 2019, in Fort Worth, Texas), the purpose of the event was to discuss the role of the Bicycle Response Team within public safety cycling. The Director of the Public Safety Chaplaincy, Sean Thomas Smith, Cpl. Dupree and their fellow collaborators, created and completed an event which absolutely projected a positive image of bike usage, emphasized the need for bike training and explored the opportunities for growth and development of bike programs. I was proud to have represented IPMBA at the event.

The most successful bike programs have a “champion”; one who supports the mission and has a significant leadership role within their agencies. The roundtable was well-attended by such leaders, including Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County, Chief John Hancock of the Bureau of Protective Services, Chief Don Perry of Irmo Police, and Deputy Director Joe Lipshetz of the Public Safety Chaplaincy, amongst others. Their involvement bodes well for the future of public safety cycling.

IPMBA’s call to support the “Mission” is answered every day by our membership. We have members who ride their patrols, helping others in need; instructors who teach the fundamental courses; Instructor-Trainers who develop and certify new instructors; and Administrative Directors who facilitate the growth of our organization and promote our accomplishments.

We must capture recent developments in the bike industry (like the E-bike), continue to develop realistic and relevant applications, including tactical ones (like BRT), and seek organizational resources to educate our dedicated brothers and sisters bound together by public services like the Public Safety Chaplaincy.

Borrowing a phrase from Chaplain Smith, I challenge each of you in our IPMBA family, to “Support the Mission”.

Mike recently “un-retired” and returned to the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington DC, which he has served for nearly 30 years. He was one of the first members of the MPD Mountain Bike Unit in 1992 and was on the first Civil Disturbance Squad on July 4, 1995. In 1997, he became the first city-wide mountain bike coordinator and training supervisor. He discovered IPMBA in 1998 and has been a dedicated member ever since. Employing his experience and knowledge into the professional cycle training offered by IPMBA enabled him to be certified as an Instructor in 2001 and an Instructor Trainer in 2008. He also teaches EVOC, MC, Segway, firearms, marksmanship, CIO, patrol rifle, and CDU. He serves as Education Director on the IPMBA Board. His motto is, “Ride Hard, Ride Safe, and Thanks for Coming Out!” He can be reached at sgtwear@msn.com.

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