http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/221951111.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Bike cops on night shift break up fights, but they also offer up a friendlier face of a police force under fire.
It’s 2 a.m. on a Saturday when a squad of bicycle-riding police forms a neat row in the middle of Hennepin Avenue — eyes trained on a river of clubgoers.
The Bike Rapid Response Team (BRRT), a group of officers specially trained in crowd control dart off to a nearby parking lot to break up a brawl, then pedal away moments later when a similar melee erupts in a parking ramp. Within a minute, two men lay on the ground in handcuffs, next to police bicycles tossed aside in the takedown. A whiff of pepper spray lingers in the air.
Members of a two-wheeled squad shows the value of being able to zoom through alleys and streets to keep an eye-level watch over all corners of downtown, but also that they can be the slow-moving, friendly face of a force that has recently come under fire for being out of touch with the community.
While about two dozen other officers patrolled downtown on foot or in squad cars, the bike team helped stranded bikers repair a tire, gave Band-Aids to a woman who had cut her knee and offered directions to lost pedestrians. They also got the occasional earful from people who hold the force in low regard.
Nearly 150 Minneapolis officers are certified to patrol the city by bicycle, a method of policing that has existed in the city since the 1930s but was modernized in the 1990s. Forty-two of them are cleared to work part time on the Bike Rapid Response Team, an elite group created in advance of the 2008 Republican National Convention that is now deployed for club close, sporting events, parades, protests and even the annual Zombie Pub Crawl.
“When an officer is in a police car, it’s tough for a citizen to interact with that officer,” said one observer. He would like to see bike patrol expanded.
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