Officer Bike Ride: Making Community-Oriented Policing a Reality

Officer Louis Reyes and Officer Leo Rey patrolling the L.A. River || Photo by: Lucy Guanuna

It's around 9 a.m. and I was 30 minutes into my bike ride on the L.A. River with two officers from LAPD's Northeast Division, when we heard a loud almost demented laugh coming from behind the trees further down the path.

We biked past the trees and saw a young man running towards the river with two bikes in his hand, still laughing. Are you okay? What's going on? asked one of the officers and the guy immediately switched his demeanor. He looked nervous and started pointing in the direction of the main highway, still visible from the bike path, and he started yelling, They hit me! They're over there!

Why do you have two bikes? asked one of the officers. I stood back as they talked to the guy, who was still laughing and shifting around nervously. Less than a minute later, a patrol car came rushing down the street, lights on, towards the river. The guy was running, trying to escape the patrol car, because he had just stolen somebody's keys and found the bikes somewhere along the way.

People on the bike path stared as they cycled by while the officers who arrived in the patrol car discussed with the owner of the keys whether or not he wanted to press charges. As the two officers and I biked away, the guy was in handcuffs awaiting his fate, facing the river.

For years the L.A. River has existed on the fringes of society, a place shrouded in isolation and welcoming only to those who didn't want to be seen - to use or sell drugs, rob and burglarize or to elude the police during pursuits.

L.A. River || Photo by: Lucy Guanuna

But given the river's sustained solitude, it has also been a place where people have gone to seek refuge. The river provided a place to sleep for those who found L.A.'s busy streets uninviting and also provided a place for young artists to express their creativity when underfunded schools didn't offer them the space or tools needed. And for low income and homeless individuals for whom food is not easily accessible, the river's different varieties of fish have also provided sustenance.

As revitalization projects transform the river, it has brought with it a new population of recreational users who are now entering a space that has long been marginalized and they have become targets of crime that has long-existed and continues to increase. Despite the skyrocketing housing prices in the Northeast's river-adjacent neighborhoods and millions of dollars spent to restore the Northeast's portion of the river, according to LAPD data, property crime has increased by 25% from 2014 to 2016, especially near the river's recreational zones where officers said incidences of property theft are rampant.

To serve the needs of both communities and bring crime rates down, LAPD's Northeast Division officers are moving away from traditional policing methods by engaging the public through events such as town hall meetings that open up dialogue about issues within the community and Cafecito con el Capitan (Coffee with the Captain) which gives members of the Spanish-speaking community - typically wary of police - an opportunity to have a conversation with the department's captain. This move towards community-oriented policing sets the Northeast Division apart at a time when the recent high-profile police shootings of unarmed black men across the U.S. have brought the LAPD under scrutiny for what critics say is a pattern of excessive use of force.

In one of their many moves towards community-oriented policing, Northeast Division senior lead officers Louis Reyes and Leo Rey held their first community bike ride in April. They took more than 30 people, including children, on a ride along the L.A. River from Egret Park in Elysian Valley to John Ferraro Athletic Fields in Griffith Park. They hoped the bike ride would not only encourage more people to use the river, but would also help improve relations between the police department and the community they serve.

Louis Reyes (left) and Leo Rey (right) || Photo by: Lucy Guanuna

We wanted people to come out here and express their thoughts and concerns and get more comfortable with us and more comfortable with using the river, said Rey as we rode along the river near Glassell Park. The more people use the bike path, the less crime will happen.

They aim to go beyond the traditional role of enforcing the law to involving the community in getting the police job done, which in turn, makes their job easier. The Northeast Division has a small force. Apart from specialized units, including the gang and bike units, the department has 5 to 8 patrol cars serving an area that's roughly 29 square miles with a population of about 250,000 people.

We want to be as a efficient as possible, so we're trying to build a better link to the community so that they could be our eyes and ears for us when we aren't there, said Reyes.

We don't want people to fear or distrust us. We want them to be able to call us if they need help, said Rey.

The two senior lead officers and I were on the bike path headed south towards Dodger Stadium. It was early and the air was still crisp. Reyes and Rey greeted everybody that walked and biked by with a hearty good morning .

We have bike patrol on the river to make sure it's safe, but we're mostly here to build a relationship with the community. Its easier to do on a bike than a patrol car. We can actually stop and talk to people and get to know them, said Rey.

While biking in the Elysian Valley portion of the Glendale Narrows, we passed sections of tall vegetation that in some areas looked like overgrown bushes and in others looked like small impenetrable forests. A bird sunbathed on a rock while a duck floated down the river dipping his he

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