GREEN BAY – Like the Olympic cyclists, a group of body armor, holsters and rescue bags rolled into the Wisconsin Public Service parking lot.
The Green Bay Police Department’s first mobile response team – 24 officers on mountain bikes – had already been deployed during First Lady Jill Biden’s visit to Green Bay in June, the Fire Over the Fox on July 4 and the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee before Lt. Jason Allen introduced it to the media Thursday afternoon.
It was clear that the bike patrol’s mission went beyond simply being an additional security measure for the 2025 NFL Draft after police purchased 27 bikes for the team last year.
Citizens will become increasingly accustomed to these two-wheeled police officers as they carry out their duties to maintain public order at all kinds of events, from community gatherings and parades to protests and celebrity visits.
“When you see them on the road, this is what they’re going to look like,” Allen said as the group of blue polo shirts, black sunglasses and bike shorts pedaled in two rows behind him. “We’re here as peace police to make sure the community can exercise their rights under the First Amendment.”
Bike lanes have only been around since 1987, when Seattle police developed a model for the rest of the country. Patrol cars struggled to get through downtown, which was about as densely populated as Chicago, while a major bus tunnel was being built. The city expanded its bike lanes from just two officers after the time saved in navigating around cars, pedestrians and buildings proved worthwhile.
Since then, the Justice Department estimates that there are over 10,000 bicycle patrol officers across the country.
When Police Chief Christopher Davis came to Green Bay, Allen said, establishing a bicycle patrol was one of his priorities after seeing the benefits of the Portland, Oregon, police bicycle unit.
For two weeks, Green Bay’s 24 police officers learned about the unique challenges and benefits of bike patrols from Milwaukee Police Department instructors who are certified to conduct the International Police Mountain Biking Association (IPMBA) Bicycle Response Team training.
“Social media helps create crowds – some of them unruly – and bike cops are uniquely qualified to deal with them,” the IPMBA website says. The association says bike patrols provide a sense of proximity and intimacy with the public that a police officer in a patrol car does not have, and allow those on duty to more easily shift from simply enforcing the law to serving the community.
“People would come up to us as we rode our bikes through Green Bay as part of our training. That never happens when our patrol cars have the windows rolled up and the cage in the back,” Allen said.
The training description on the IPMBA website promises a lot of excitement (“with smoke and noise!”).
“At the end of practice, there were a lot of crashes and a lot of guys in pain,” Allen said. “I don’t know how the guys from Milwaukee do it, but when I stop, my foot has to come right back down.”
According to the curriculum posted on the IPMBA website, instructors will teach participants team building, how to recognize and respond to the five levels of crowd behavior, and the three most common chemical crowd control agents, among other things.
All Green Bay trainees were assessed for active participation in the exercises and graduated in May after achieving at least 80% on the final written exam.
Other officers in the department originally said they had been able to ride bicycles since they were 10 years old, Allen said.
But when he saw the bike lanes on July 4, legs on a pedal, sunglasses down, 24 of them in a line while fireworks went off, “that piqued some people’s interest,” the lieutenant said.
This curiosity could turn two of them into new bicycle patrol officers, making full use of the team’s allocated budget of 26 people.
The officers rode their bikes off the sidewalk. Their training for the day had already started over an hour ago, and seven more were still to come. One of them jumped his bikes off the curb onto the asphalt, the gears squeaking, and laughed.
Jesse Lin is a reporter covering Green Bay and politics in northeast Wisconsin. Reach him at 920-431-8247 or [email protected]
This article originally appeared in the Green Bay Press-Gazette: 24 officers on bicycles form Green Bay Police’s mobile response team
