We Ride Sport and Trail Magazine August 2017 | Page 30

Upper left: Warden showing the custom riot headgear that the FMP purchased for the Unit. Upper right; 3-on-3 soccer game during our 35th Anniversary Celebration in 2016. Lower right; Ofc Nicholson on Diesel (L), Ofc Annone on Warden (R) during officer rescue training exercises with the NCCPD academy class

accepted into and complete a separate 13-week training academy. Officers must be capable of performing nearly all of their duties without getting off the horse. They run radar and issue tickets from the horse. They arrest people from the horse. The Unit has a “get up or get out” policy where all officers must be able to mount and dismount without external assistance. In addition, the officers are taught how to care for the horses and equipment. Officers are not required to have prior riding experience but must be able to deal with the physical demands of this assignment and the exposure to the elements while patrolling.

There are many reasons why a community might benefit from a Mounted Unit but one of the biggest reasons is the word “community.” The presence of the horses provides an entirely different dynamic between officers and members of the public. The horses provide a more visible and a more approachable police presence. The horses are a huge draw which provides our police force with an invaluable asset. They are deployed into high-risk areas where recent patterns of crime necessitate a visible and consistent presence. The Unit will be deployed in these areas for hours and days at a time rather than a patrol car driving through from time to time. This encourages people to come out of their homes and then the horses provide the catalyst for communication to happen between the officers and the community. For this very reason, the horses may be deployed to canvas following major crimes because people are much more comfortable talking with the officers on horseback. As any mounted officer will tell you “nobody ever tried to pet my police car.”

Despite all these positives, Mounted Units can become a target of budget cuts as ours did in 2009. When this happened, citizens who supported the Mounted Unit thought this was shortsighted and formed the Friends of the Mounted Patrol. The thought was that if the public understood the value of the Unit and if funds raised could help offset the budget shortfalls that the Unit could be saved and that’s exactly what happened. Today, the Unit enjoys more support from the chain of command and elected officials that it did in 2009 but the risk is always there that this could happen again. Our mission is to engage the public so that the Unit will never be dissolved and to raise funds to support the ongoing needs of the Unit

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Photo by Melanie Litten

Photo by Melanie Litten

Photo by Melanie Litten