Crime Fight Shifts Gears : Bike Cops Go Where Cars Can’t, Build Rapport With Public

They are the envy of nearly every paper pusher in town.

Instead of donning a suit and tie every morning, Joe Galante and Kevin Donoghue slide into some loose-fitting shorts, a polo shirt and a lightweight helmet.

Instead of slouching behind a desk all day, they coast along the streets of Thousand Oaks on hardy mountain bikes, chatting up business owners while keeping an eye out for bad guys.

Galante and Donoghue are the first two Ventura County sheriff’s deputies assigned to the Thousand Oaks bicycle patrol, which began full-time operations earlier this month thanks to a federal community policing grant. And the deputies are the first to admit that their job is every bit as much of a curb-hopping romp as it appears.

“I’ll do this until they kick me off or drag me out of here,” Galante said, sipping a frozen Jamba Juice after a long day of riding. “It’s the best job in the department.”

Being a bicycle cop, however, is not all downhill. Even on the hottest days, the deputies must carry about 30 pounds of gear, including their pistols and a bulky bulletproof vest. Week after week of cycling takes its physical toll. And although nothing more than a few foul utterances have been hurled their way so far, Galante and Donoghue worry that with a well-thrown bottle, any common hoodlum could cause a serious injury.

But as police cyclists, Galante, 36, and Donoghue, 28, have many advantages over their automobile-driving counterparts. They can observe details and spot crimes that deputies in patrol cars often overlook zooming by at 40 mph. They are more approachable, and frequently receive tips that patrol officers miss. And they do a better job of establishing a friendly rapport and sharing safety tips with the business owners and residents they come across on a daily basis.

“They can access the little knicks and knacks, going behind buildings and in the alleys,” said Dennis Carlson, owner of Carlson Building Supply. “You’re not going to sneak up on somebody in a car.” Hoping to help launch a bicycle patrol along Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Carlson tapped other business owners on the street last year to purchase the $1,000 bikes for the city’s police force. It did not require a hard sell.

“It only took about two hours to get the money,” he said, chatting with Galante and Donoghue on a recent afternoon. “This way, you get to know the deputies, and they get to know you. They always have time for a ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ ”

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Galante and Donoghue start their shifts at the sheriff’s substation at The Oaks mall, usually heading east to the shops, restaurants and apartment complexes around Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

The deputies alternate between day and evening patrols, often riding into the darkness with high-powered headlights attached to their handlebars to catch unsuspecting drug dealers and petty criminals. Dressed in black and pedaling with stealthiness, they have also nabbed several people smoking pot outside bars or getting behind the wheel after a few too many.

The day shifts mean less action, but still numerous arrests. And daytime provides a better opportunity for Galante and Donoghue to talk with people along the way--a big reason for community-oriented policing programs, such as a bicycle patrol.

On a recent morning, the deputies began their day by riding over to a shopping center and talking to the employees of a pet store about a small-time scam artist who was victimizing the area. The man--one of the store’s better customers--was apparently stealing expensive pet equipment at one of the stores in the franchised chain and returning it, for cash, at another.

“It’s a common scam,” Donoghue said. “They keep doing it over and over until the stores get together and figure it out.”

Galante and Donoghue then rode down to the boulevard, splitting up so one could comb the alleyways behind the shops while the other rode by the storefronts. They veered off at a well-hidden homeless encampment in a creek bed, looking for a vagrant they suspected in a string of petty crimes.

And near the Moorpark Freeway, they stopped a 16-year-old from Glendale as he walked down the street, warning him about Thousand Oaks’ truancy ordinance.

At the Island Village Apartments, one of the more crime-plagued spots in Thousand Oaks, the deputies made a lengthy visit. Riding up a hillside behind the complex littered with glass, they discovered some exposed electrical wiring and notified the property manager of the city code violation. They also checked on a retail produce truck to make sure its owner had permits, discovering--much to the driver’s surprise--that the vehicle had outstanding warrants stemming from a previous owner.

As Galante interviewed the driver, Donoghue tried to chat with the truck’s Spanish-speaking customers, taking time to spread the community policing gospel and hand out police stickers to neighborhood children.

“It helps when they’re around,” said the apartment’s property manager, Joe Fox. “You don’t see too much happening when they ride in here.”

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After a brief stop at Carlson’s business, things got more serious. When Galante and Donoghue routinely flagged down a pickup truck stacked full of wooden pallets, which they suspected had been stolen from a nearby mall, they nabbed a wanted suspect.

The passenger in the truck, it turned out, was Robert Lee Conrad, a 25-year-old reputed gang member with several outstanding drug-related felony warrants--a man Thousand Oaks police had been searching for for weeks. Guns drawn, they ordered him to step out of the truck, arresting him on the spot at Conejo School Road. They radioed a patrol officer, who showed up and drove Conrad away. The driver of the truck was released with the pallets.

“The other guys were like, ‘How’d you find him?’ ” Galante said, smiling. “If you do enough of these small [stops] every day, you eventually get something big.”

The deputies made a midday stop at Mark’s Conejo Cyclery, which is owned by a reserve deputy, to have lunch while their bikes were being checked out. Then they hit the road again, reaching the new Promenade at Westlake shopping center before turning back and scouring the other side of the boulevard on the way to The Oaks mall--an 18-mile ride in all.

Before calling it a day--and heading to the substation for their end-of-the-day paperwork--Galante and Donoghue handcuffed their bikes to a chain outside Jamba Juice on Moorpark Road to enjoy a smoothie, hand out more stickers to children, and talk to more merchants. Al Besa, the manager of the Men’s Wearhouse shop next door, said he appreciates the bicycle patrol’s new presence.

“You get kids raising all kinds of Cain over here,” Besa said, telling the deputies about his recurring problems with skateboarders. “It helps to see these policemen around.”