Deputies Mount Strategy to Get to Know People

Two sheriff’s deputies can pass through a neighborhood on foot or in a patrol cruiser and hardly raise an eyebrow.

But put them in saddles, and you have a spectacle.

That’s what Senior Deputy Roger DeWames of the Sheriff’s Department’s mounted unit found when he visited Thousand Oaks’ Greenwich Village neighborhood Friday from 4 to 10 p.m. Mounted deputies will tour the Conejo Creek Condominiums next Friday.

“The horses seem to be a good ice-breaker with anyone,” said DeWames, who rode through Greenwich Village with fellow Deputy Michael Panek to talk to residents about the area’s crime problems. “When we visited El Rio last year, even people we had arrested in the past were coming out and asking us questions.”

It’s the latest approach in community policing, what authorities see as an extremely useful tool to learn about neighborhood concerns. What is difficult, DeWames said, is getting people to stop watching TV, step out of their homes and share what they know about their neighborhood.

The horses, Playboy and Gus, are more than just a good mode of transport, Panek said. They are a great way to draw a crowd.

“You get to meet a lot more people, and you have a lot of positive contact with them,” he said. “Instead of pulling someone over and giving them a ticket, you learn something about them and where they live.”

As the deputies ambled onto Brossard Drive, they caught the eye of Beverly Reis and her 5-year-old daughter Kirsten.

Kirsten, her mother acknowledged, had a negative opinion of police officers from watching the program “COPS.” But petting Playboy a few times probably took care of that for good, Reis said.

“You see a cop car driving by, they can’t stop by as easily and talk,” Reis said. “We wouldn’t have come out here if they weren’t on horses.

Before long, a crowd had gathered. DeWames and Panek learned about the woman whose dog was lost, the beer-chugging teenagers who hang out in one part of the neighborhood and the taggers and gang members who cause trouble in another.

Contrary to public opinion, the 22-member mounted patrol--which has worked in everything from presidential security details to show-and-tell programs at local schools--is made up of deputies who do other full-time jobs within the department.

And also contrary to what many people believe, the horses are the deputies’ own. They have to shoulder the maintenance costs themselves.

So, why would the deputies go through the hassle of spending their Friday nights riding around a suburban neighborhood? They enjoy the people along the ride, DeWames said.

“It makes me feel safer,” Shannon Kaye said. “We have kids who hang around here at night. We get a lot of graffiti. It’s nice to know that someone cares.”