Thanks to a $22,500 federal grant, city police officers will tool around in five electric bicycles to enhance community policing. The bikes will be unveiled by Mayor Bill Finch and Chief Joe Gaudett at a Tuesday-morning news conference outside the Morton Government Center on Broad Street.
“These bikes serve two important purposes,” says Gaudett. “They help the officers to respond more quickly to incidents in their community than officers on traditional police bikes. And, they still allow our neighborhood officers to continue to stop and talk with people in the community that we serve.”
The new electric bikes will supplement the department’s existing manual bikes and Segways, according to public safety spokesperson Bill Kaempffer.
“Cities and police departments all over the world are embracing electric and hybrid vehicles, recognizing their utility for cracking down on crime and their care for the environment,” said Mayor Bill Finch.
Bloomfield Bicycle, which outfitted the electric bikes, described the model as the best electric bike that has come through the shop. The bikes come with a 500 watt motor and a 36 volt battery. The bike can travel up to 20 mph and up to 40 miles between charges, says Kaempffer.
Isn’t this just great. We will have cops on Segways, cops on electric bikes, cops on ATVs, cops on horseback. The one thing we don’t have is enough cops in patrol cars. One thing this horse’s ass mayor and his robot police chief will not address is the fact the PD does NOT respond to quality of life issues anymore.
Any chance Finch can ride one of these bikes out of town???
Baffled in Bridgeport: Identify yourself and I’ll grab a pogo stick and run you out of town!
Local Eyes is Walt Kelly and he used to hang out at Pogo’s!
Most excellent!
# Horses asses > # Horses
How can this be?
Finch is exhibit 1 in any current examination of this age-old question.
It’s a girl’s bike! What’s next, a unicycle?
Girl’s bikes, chickens, water taxis, used mattress factory, pot farms, solar farms, water barrels.
These are the most famous clown names we know of:
Anton, Antonio, Antoschka, Avner the Eccentric, Bip, Blinko, Blinky, Bozo, Bud, Buster Keaton, Charlie Cairoli, Charlie Chalk, Chuchin, Clarabell, Coco, Emmett Kelly, Frosty, Grandma, Grock, Jack, Joey, Jyjou, Karandash, Koko, LaLaLa, Leanora Who, Lou, Mooky, Mr. Stubs, Otto, Paul, Pepino, Pops, Remi, Ronald McDonald, Scoopy, Slava, Smoot, Sylvester, T.J. Tatters, Uncle Sam, Yuri, Zag, Zig,
I’d like to add some new clown names to the list, Wet Willy and Markels-Usurpie.
The bike shown allows for a quick dismount, which officers can use to their advantage. Ask the BPD if that’s a girls’ bike.
Oh Foxy, your first comment still makes me laugh. And I also love Loco Eyes’ response to ask the BPD if it is a girl’s bike. I have to go clip cards to my bike spokes now …
Is anyone here serious?
We already have electric batons: tasers. We already have electric doors in prison cells. We already have electric surveillance cameras. Why not electric bikes for the police force?
Paul,
Why don’t you go to the press event and pose your question to Finch?
Pete Spain: you need a new success tactic–your methodology needs repair. If you disagree with my viewpoint, use these pages to express yours.
Paul,
Knowing for more than a year about the significant issue of meeting the state-mandated minimum budget requirement, the mayor fails to do so, plays smoke and mirrors with the budget, doesn’t show to a meeting in B’port about this with the SDE Commissioner, State Budget Director, and our current superintendent … at the risk of putting the BOE budget many millions in the hole … and we’re supposed to join in the green excitement for a $22,500 grant for electric mopeds for the police?
Hear hear!
What a bunch of mopeheads!
When you’ve been around the longest time it seems you see the same old stories recycled every few years. First it was the horses, then it was the bikes, then it was the Segways, now it is the electric bikes. By the way, what happened to those bikes and Segways? They went the way of the police precincts on Howard Avenue and Clarence Street.
Never a stone unturned, always the latest gimmick, PR opportunity around whatever grant money is available any particular time. Too bad, because the actual policemen are the best. Their everyday heroics don’t warrant press releases.
The 105 police officers we have patrolling the city are overworked heroes. These cops riding bicycles, horses, Segways, boats and whatever else they can find are the lame, lazy kiss-asses of the department.
Let me ask a question, will the cop who is chasing a killer on his bike drop the bike and chase the perp through the back yards? Do you think the bike will be there when the officer returns? I don’t think so.
Hey chief, instead of all this crap, how about putting bodies in patrol cars? I know this will be novel for you and your senior-citizen deputies, but try it. Maybe crime will go down. BTW, how many arrests have the horse cops made?
All of the bikes and Segways are accounted for and stored at headquarters, they did not go the way of Howard Ave or Clarence Street precincts.
I have not seen a bike or Segway for years.
Bridgeporteur. They are in storage somewhere. They have been on the road doing some sort of patrol work. Seems to me the chief gets all the fat-ass cops and assigns them to these vehicles, after a year or so they are put in storage.