Bike patrols rolling through Colleyville
[B' Spokes: A very cool approach to policing.]
********************************************************
BY STEVE NORDER
...
That is the idea behind outgoing Police Chief Steve Dye's creation of the city's bike patrol this spring. He wants the officers to be accessible.
"I've tasked them with increasing police-citizen interaction," Dye told the City Council last month. "The approachability. We don't have that metal of a car in between the bicycle officer and the citizen. ... Approachability is very critical."
Dye said the intent is to talk to people, to find "out what their concerns are and what their views are on how we can better serve them."
For the eight officers with bicycles, patrolling their city district may start out in a car with a bike hanging from a rack. But during the course of that shift, officers will park their cars, get on their bikes and ride along a part of the city's trails or take a tour of a parking lot.
An officer riding a bike through a parking lot is less noticeable than one driving a police car, Dye said. That may allow an officer to quietly approach someone trying to break into a vehicle.
However, officers will never be more than five minutes away from their cars in case they must respond to an emergency, Dye said.
...