Police team up with park rangers to patrol paths – BikePortland

The path through Waterfront Park and the Eastbank Esplanade will see more effective police patrols, thanks to a new collaboration between the Portland Police Bureau and Portland Parks & Recreation.

According to the PPB, members of its Central Bike Squad have been doing walking beats in Portland parks every week for the past several months. It came about when a sergeant on the Central Precinct Bike Squad would do hikes in Washington Park and Forest Park during his on-duty wellness time. (Each PPB officer is given one hour per shift to focus on personal wellness.) During those hikes, the officer met City of Portland park rangers and struck up a friendship with them.

It took a few years of conversations and on-again, off-again partnerships for specific crime issues, but the PPB says the idea was recently rekindled by a park ranger supervisor.

The problem for Portland Park rangers is they often get pushback from some park users when the request identification for various rule violations. And since rangers aren’t law enforcement officers, they have no legal mechanism to compel someone to identify themselves. That’s where police officers come in.

“So the Rangers asked the Officers to go out with them from time to time and patrol Pioneer Square, the North Park Blocks or Couch Park because that’s where most of the issues were,” wrote PPB Public Information Officer Sgt. Kevin Allen in an email about the initiative sent to local media outlets today. “It’s a powerful partnership because some problems can be dealt with by the Rangers, others are better handled by Police, and sometimes a combination of both. And it shows inter-Bureau collaboration and alignment under our shared values of public safety for the community.”

Sgt. Allen said there have been numerous examples of how this collaboration has led to the ability of both bureaus to more effectively reduce crime and address issues in parks.

Safety on central city paths has been a big concern for many bicycle riders over the years.

Have you seen these new walking beats in action? Have you noticed any improvement in safety in Waterfront Park or the Esplanade?