Warsaw Police Department last week hosted a training course for officers from multiple agencies on how to ride and utilize police bicycles. Fifteen officers from the Winona Lake, Syracuse, North Manchester and Warsaw police departments, as well as from the U.S. Police Department of Veterans Affairs, participated in the 32-hour, four-day bicyclist course sponsored by the International Police Mountain Bike Association. Seven of the Warsaw Police Department’s 12 bicycle officers engaged in the course. Through the course, officers participated in classroom lectures concerning the ins and outs of the bike and the associated equipment, and live skills training on local roads and paths and a specially-prepared course focusing on the fundamentals of police biking. Officers learned braking, balancing and turning, as well as navigating curbs and scaling stairs. Abilities such as getting off the bicycle, carrying it and maneuvering through traffic also were addressed in the course. The lessons had an immediate return on investment, to boot. According to Warsaw Police spokesman Lt. Kip Shuter, while on a night ride during the course, on the west-side of Warsaw, bicycle police rode up on two men described as “suspicious.” Police found 113 total grams of marijuana on the men, and each were arrested on drug charges. “The police bicycles allowed these officers the opportunity to ride up undetected and make arrests that probably would not have otherwise been made and removed 113 grams of marijuana off the streets,” Shuter said. The course, instructed by Elkhart Police Department Officer Jason Ray, included group rides through the streets, greenways and bike trails of Warsaw and Winona Lake.
