ST. GEORGE — It was a warm Friday afternoon as St. George Police officers Jose Cabero and Anthony Kearney rode their bikes through the city’s Town Square and stopped to greet just about everyone they passed.
Children were offered stickers by the bicycle-mounted officers while their parents were asked how their day was going and if they needed help with anything.
Soon after, Cabero met a man sitting by himself and started a conversation while Kearney noticed some graffiti that had been left on a nearby table. He took a special cleaning solution from a pack on his bike and sprayed the graffiti – which turned out to be chalk or something similar – and wiped it off.
Nearby, Cabero continued to speak with the solitary man until returning to Kearney and sharing that the man apparently was in need of some help and was given information about services offered through the Switchpoint Community Resource Center.
From there the two mountain bike patrol officers found another instance of graffiti and cleaned it up before returning to interacting with the community at large.
“We purposefully seek out interactions with the public,” St. George Police Sgt. Mike Christensen told St. George News when asked about the role of the bike patrol. “Our goal is to stop and interact with everybody and provide them with what they may need.”
Interacting with the public as they do is a part of what Christensen called “proactive policing” versus “reactive policing.”
Regular patrol officers constantly react to both emergency calls and calls for service involving potential crimes. They usually have to run from one call to the next, Christensen said. And they don’t necessarily have the time to go into the community to interact on a more personal level as officers of the bike patrol are able to.
“In the bike patrol we have less responsibility to react and more responsibility and opportunity to go out and proactively interact with the community,” he said.
Those interactions can range from simple greetings with passersby to dealing with vagrancy-related issues and connecting those in need with community resources as Cabero had begun to do with the solitary man at the Town Square.
“We run into vagrancy-type issues multiple times a day and people in need of community resources,” Christensen said. “It is one of our primary focuses.”
Formed in 1997, the St. George Police Mountain Bike Patrol was created as a way to better promote and preserve the city’s quality of life through proactive measures. This style of policing embraces the concept of “broken windows theory,” which states major problems can be prevented by addressing the minor ones in the community first.
Christensen said an example of this practice – in addition to being out among the community – is taking time to investigate instances of abandoned homes, vehicles and the like. The time they are able to take in addressing these problems can help avoid the creation of a potential criminal element in that area later, he said.
“We can go out and take the time to find the abandoned houses and cars and help the communities and complexes that need a little more help with problem tenants and things like that,” Cabero said while noting the community involvement that came with being on the bike patrol beings as his favorite part of the job.
Using mountain bikes instead of patrol cars also allows the police officers to more easily reach places their regular vehicles could not, while also granting the additional benefit of being more approachable to the public.
When a police officer pulls over and gets out of their car, someone may wonder what they have done to become an object of police scrutiny, Christensen said. Not exactly so for an officer approaching on a bike. Instead, the bikes the officers use may end up as a conversation starter, he said.
The bike patrol also helps promote “crime-free complexes,” and is partnered with participating apartment complexes and other high-density housing in this regard. As a part of this partnership, they perform extra patrols around these areas, work with the complex managers and enforce city and state code in order to keep these spots crime free.
The police department’s mountain bike patrol officers generally will spend a minimum of 30 hours each week patrolling different parts of the city. This can include area parks to shopping centers and even stints on the mountain bike trails that surround and crisscross the city. They also are involved in providing security for events like the Washington County Fair, Ironman triathlon, St. George Marathon and so on.
The heavy-duty use of the bikes requires they be replaced every two years or so.
“We hammer these bikes,” Christensen said.
Currently, the bike patrol uses specialized Stumpjumper mountain bikes, which are slated for replacement in the near future. The bike patrol also has used Cannondale, Scott and other Stumpjumper models.
With the ability to devote time and energy to the city’s quality of life issues and aiding the homeless and those in need on a more positive and approachable level, Christensen said he considers the bike patrol to be “the face of the police department.”
Having spent most of his life in St. George, Christensen said being on the bike patrol gives him a sense of accomplishment as he is able to help resolve issues he comes across rather than just react to them after they become a problem.
“It means something to me to be able to go out and get something done and fixed or provide a community member with resources that they specifically need and may not be in the best of situations,” he said. “The end accomplishment is what I really take pride in.”
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