Baby, it’s cold outside, but that won’t stop Burnaby RCMP’s recently resurrected bike squad from making its rounds.
When cycling isn’t an option because of inclement weather, the patrol will take to their gams and conduct good old fashioned foot patrols.
“They are an absolutely effective unit,” Chief Supt. Deanne Burleigh told the NOW at a media event Wednesday. “They can go through alleys, laneways, sidewalks, go into the malls, go into the stores, transit hubs in a way that the police cars can’t. They’re very visible, very proactive, community based.”
The bike squad has been back on the road for less than a month.
Burleigh, who took over as the head of Burnaby RCMP last December, mothballed it before the summer because of a shortage of police resources, she said.
The city hadn’t funded an increase in the local detachment’s numbers since 2008, she explained, and the seven officers who had been serving as bike cops during the summers were needed to deal with a growing number of 911 calls.
The decision raised concern at the city’s public safety committee, but former Mayor Derek Corrigan said it was up to the officer in charge to allocate the local detachment’s resources as she saw fit, and the city was not to blame for the loss of the bike squad.
The bike patrol soon became an election issue, though, when mayoral candidate Mike Hurley promised to reinstate it if he was elected.
But Mounties didn’t have to wait till then.
Three months before the Oct. 20 election, Corrigan and his Burnaby Citizens Association council unanimously approved a plan to hire eight extra officers in 2018 and six more in 2019, allowing for the bike patrol to be reinstated.
“The community wanted a bike squad; I wanted a bike squad, and now I had resources where I could deploy four of the 14 that were given to the bike squad,” Burleigh said this week.
Also speaking to the NOW this week, Mayor Hurley said he wasn’t bothered about the election-time funding announcement stealing his thunder.
“I’m not going to look back on anything like that. I’m just happy that the right thing’s being done. Police officers are on the street where they belong,” he said.
The resurrected bike squad is made up for four members instead of the previous seven, but the new squad will be active all year round.
Const. Aaron Cheng said he was drawn to the patrol because he knew it would allow him a “greater variety of interactions with the public.”
“We’re not in a vehicle with 300 horsepower and all this aluminum frame separating us, right?” he said.
The bike patrol members’ bright yellow jackets make them highly visible, and Cheng said members of the public haven’t been shy about approaching them.
“It really feels like we’re part of the community,” he said.
As for the squad’s crime-fighting activity, just last week it had a two-for-one call at the Bob Prittie Library – first quelling a disturbance and then spotting and arresting an individual wanted on a B.C.-wide warrant.
But bulk of the patrol’s contacts during the first few weeks have been with people “who’ve been dealt a bad hand,” according to Cheng.
“We are encountering a lot of people who are homeless, and maybe we didn’t expect to see it in the volume that we’re seeing it and in the areas that we’re seeing it,” he said.
Along with their other equipment, the bike cops carry pamphlets listing community resources where people can get help.
Burleigh said the bike squad is already making a difference in the community, and she will be looking to see if more members can be added after the detachment hires its six extra Mounties next year.
“I have to take a look at where the pressures are. Our number 1 priority is response to 911 calls,” she said.
In the meantime, she put local crooks on notice, saying the bike squad could show up anytime, anywhere.
“People don’t expect to see them. They just sort of show up,” she said. “They’re going into areas and seeing things that we would normally get a complaint from a citizen on. They’re seeing it and they’re reacting right then and there.”
