Next time you visit Prairie Village you may see officers on two wheels instead of four.
The Prairie Village Police Department launched a two-officer bike unit last week. The department told 41 Action News the reason for the change is to not only patrol local parks and trails more efficiently, but to also improve the relationship with the community.
"Just with kinda the way things have been going in society recently, we want to forge those partnerships with the community,” said Sgt. Eric McCullough.
The hope is that officers can also get to hard-to-reach areas more efficiently, such as nearby creek beds where there’s been recent drug activity.
"They hunker down in those little places. You can't just drive the car through the park and find that place; you'd have to get out and walk or get on the bike,” said Officer Steve Steck.
The Prairie Village bike unit comes at a time when Kansas City Police have heavily increased patrols on the Indian Creek Trail in KCMO where there have been at least four homicides over the last year. However, PVPD says those homicides have nothing to do with their new unit.The small suburban metro city has seen just two homicides over the last five years, and just 68 violent crimes in 2016, at least a five year low.
Sgt. McCullough and officer Steck both told 41 Action News the bike patrol is more about building trust.
"Let them be approachable so that people can come up, ask them questions, have contact with them,” said McCullough.
Steck said, "You have to have some thing or some face out there to let people know that, yes, you can talk to us, you can trust us, we're regular people."
