DOWNTOWN : LAPD Night Riders Protect and Swerve

After workers have left for the day, the burglars, robbers and drug dealers hover in the shadows, where it is often difficult for police in patrol cars, mounted on horses or on foot to catch them.

Enter the night riders: police officers on bicycles.

Central Division Officers Patrick Kalscheuer and Terry Rochon say there is nothing like the stealth, speed and versatility of a bike as they patrol Little Tokyo, Skid Row and Chinatown.

The bike-riding duo may often look cool and breezy, but their appearance belies the fact that they spend hours wearing bulletproof vests and heavy gun belts as they pedal around town. And it helps that they patrol at night, which relatively few of the Los Angeles Police Department divisions do regularly because of the increased dangers of traffic and, in some areas, of being shot.

Of Central Division’s nine two-bike units, four teams ride at night. They can often be more effective than foot patrols, said Sgt. Sam Mark. In one 17-day stretch, for example, Rochon arrested nine felony suspects and 66 for misdemeanors; during the same period, a Central Division foot patrol officer made 17 misdemeanor and no felony arrests. The officers get special training coordinated by the Police Academy, learning how to dodge traffic and pursue suspects through alleys and down stairs, between vehicles and over curbs.

Kalscheuer and Rochon joined the bike patrol’s night shift when it began a year ago. It is a shift only for officers with good track records because it involves minimal supervision and self-imposed vigilance.

Unlike those on daytime bike patrols, Kalscheuer and Rochon can roam the Central Division without adhering to strict boundaries. But sometimes they never get far from the station on 6th Street.

Starting their patrol one recent afternoon at 4, they greeted transients and homebound workers alike. Within blocks, they spotted a nervous-looking man drinking on a street corner. And, like many people they cite for misdemeanors, he looked familiar. They stopped to search him and, within minutes, called for a patrol car to take him to the station.

Kalscheuer and Rochon spent almost two hours at the station investigating the matter; the two have turned up murder suspects from misdemeanor warrants. Their drinker turned out to have an arrest record several pages long and 17 aliases.

By the time they returned to the streets, the sun had set.

Rochon and Kalscheuer always keep their eyes out for the drinkers, the panhandlers, the thieves. They know many by name. The officers point out that they communicate with the community more personally and consistently on bike patrols than in cars.

“When they come through, it gives the area a secure feeling,” said Brian Kito, a member of the Greater Little Tokyo Anti-Crime Assn. “(Little Tokyo) has nooks and crannies that black-and-whites (police cars) can’t get to.”

The association, along with the Boosters Club and local banks, donated two new bikes to the Central Division this summer.

That’s also the case for those the cyclists arrest as well as those they protect.

“You haven’t been around. Where you been?,” asked a homeless man as the officers arrested him at a Texaco gas station on Olympic Boulevard. The man supports his drug habit by wiping customers’ car windows for money, a practice that draws other transients, some of whom harass customers.

Rochon and Kalscheuer joked with him as they removed a makeshift dagger from his fanny pack.

“Are you saying you miss us?” Kalscheuer asked.