Sunday, January 04, 2009

MOCO PP Ride Along

Yesterday I completed the required ride-a-long with the Montgomery County Park Police for the park patrol training I'm working on getting into. It was pretty uneventful and much more laid back then I expected though this time of year they said is understandably quiet in the parks since it's so cold.



After a couple of brief things Officer Crystal and I met another officer (Maark?) for a scouting hike of an area frequented by some local deer poachers. Just a few hundred yards from some expensive homes and a golf course. Pretty ballsy if you ask me. We managed to find about a half a dozen tree stands built in the area and saw more deer then I've seen in Greenbelt since I moved here.

All in all pretty low key but enjoyable. I think the patrol program should be pretty interesting and I found out that Fairland which is so local to me is actually part of the Montgomery County jurisdiction so I can patrol their when I can't make it further out. Sweet.

2 comments:

DJ Bike Police said...

Hey,
I work for MOCO PP. We actually met back in 2007 at Reston Town Ctr Crit after the race. I was a Cat 5 back then without a team, now I'm a 4 racing for Artemis. I'm glad to hear your ride-a-long went well. I think it's an interesting juxtaposition being a police officer and fielding complaints about cyclist on Beach Dr. and other roadways, and then putting on my kit after work and riding with the same people that just got complained on. Anyway I'm always on the side of the cyclist. Goodluck with the park patrol program.

KMAX said...

Good to hear from you DJ. I think I remember you from Reston. If I remember correctly I was trying to recruit you to my team at that point though we never managed to get any regular rides set up. Ah well. Glad to hear you got set up with such an awesome team and are doing well.

Seems like it'd be tough to be on both sides of that as an officer and a cyclist. At least it's good to knwo there are at least a few of you guys who definitely understand!