Franklin police are gearing up to start bicycle patrols at the beginning of next month, a move that will boost community policing efforts and also provide opportunities for police to maneuver through areas where patrol cars can’t go.

“It’s multi-faceted,” Franklin Police Department Chief Roger Solomon said of bike patrols. “It’s a good community policing tool.” 

Also, criminals aren’t expecting to see police on bicycles which gives bike officers an opportunity to arrest drug dealers who otherwise are always on the lookout for patrol cars.

“They are a lot more covert,” Solomon said. “We want to use them from the criminal interdiction aspect as well.”

The department bought three patrol bikes last year and after getting the bikes fully outfitted with all of the necessary police gear, began using them in August getting a late start for a bike patrol season that typically runs from May through late October to early November.

“This year we intend to start the first week of May,” Solomon said.

He anticipates bike patrols being used about two days a week on each shift.

“You’ll see them all over Franklin,” Solomon said.

The bikes make officers more approachable than officers who are in cars, he said. Also, bike officers will be getting off of their bikes and going into businesses and schools to interact with the public while still out patrolling.

“It’s time to break the barriers,” Solomon said.

Sgt. John Thompson, who has been with the department for a year, was part of the bike patrol last year and is looking forward to being on a bike this year as well.

“You get to be out there and be active and get to communicate with the public more than your normally would,” Thompson said. “The public is more comfortable with approaching an officer on a bike than in a cruiser, and the children absolutely love it. They will ride up to us, and we hand out stickers and they feel like part of the patrol.”

Bike officers hand out badge stickers to children who approach them. “We had a group of them riding the square with their badge stickers on,” Thompson said of some children last year.

“Really you get to enjoy the public,” Thompson said. 

And along with the community outreach aspect of the bike patrol is the practical crime fighting application of being able to get a bike into areas without being as easily seen as a cruiser or getting into areas that a cruiser can’t.

“If you get into an area where people are dealing drugs, people aren’t used to seeing us on bikes,” Thompson said. “You have a unit of two on a bike, they’re not thinking right away, ‘That’s the police.'” 

It won’t be as easy for friends of dealers to alert them to police presence because bike patrol officers will not be as easily spotted as a marked police car, he said.

“In Franklin you have a bunch of alley ways that the cruisers can’t get in. It’s going to be very beneficial for this department and this community for sure. Our main concern is to protect this community while at the same time build a working relationship with them. We all have kids and family too that we want to go home to at night,” Thompson said.

— Follow Assistant City Editor Deborah Highland on Twitter @BGDNCrimebeat or visit bgdailynews.com.