By NATHANIEL PERCY | npercy@scng.com | Daily Breeze

PUBLISHED: July 31, 2020

Hawthorne Police Department Sgt. Jerome Michalczak, officers Tim Weeks and Gonzalo Cardenas patrol Hawthorne Memorial Park on Saturday, August 1, 2020. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)

Hawthorne police have invested in bicycles to make officers more accessible to the public, authorities said, and the early returns have been promising.

Late last year, the Hawthorne Police Department purchased three new Haro bicycles at about $1,500 each.

Sgt. Scott Nichols, a 19-year veteran of the Hawthorne Police Department, saw the value of adding the small bicycle fleet through his experience with them at the Los Angeles Police Department.

“It’s a lot easier to speak to someone on a bike rather than a black-and-white,” Nichols said. “We can look for issues that could be addressed by the department that you couldn’t necessarily see from a police vehicle.”

“We were going through a park on bikes and the community was super happy to see us out there,” Michalzak said. “They asked if we could come back. We enjoy supporting the community, and the people let you know.”

Nichols said a trip along Hawthorne Boulevard in the city’s business corridor revealed that some business owners wanted trees trims so pasersby could better see their signs.

“These are quality-of-life issues,” Nichols said.

Bikes can wend through housing complexes and other areas unreachable by squad cars. They offer the element of surprise.

“People aren’t looking for cops on bikes, so for enforcement you can roll right up on a drug deal or some street robberies,” Nichols said. “They don’t see it coming.”

Both policemen went out on bike patrols when they worked for LAPD. Nichols spent a week in training before patrolling streets on a bicycle for two years, rain or shine, from mid-afternoon to 2 a.m.

That training included tactical riding, how to dismount and contact people, and how to safely pull a service weapon if absolutely necessary.

The Police Department doesn’t have a set of specific officers who will deploy on the bicycles, the sergeants said. Hawthorne will largely stick to weekend bike patrols for now.

“It looks like it’ll be a rotating thing,” Michalzak said. “We’ll be sending a number of officers to bicycle-patrol school in the near future.”

The two sergeants expect three more bikes to arrive in the fall.

The bicycles, built for police operations, have red and blue lights on the handlebars that can blink – somewhat similar to a patrol car’s setup. A bag fastened behind the seat holds citation books and other paperwork. A drink cage is for water bottles.

The bikes’ biggest asset is they allow officers to easily stop and chat with residents.

“That’s one thing I’ve learned over 20 years of police work: If you just talk to people, you’ll figure a lot of stuff out,” Michalzak said.

“I’ve always been a huge advocate for bikes,” he said. “They won’t ever replace a black-and-white police vehicle, but they can complement each other in more ways than people might think.”

Hawthorne Police Department Sgt. Jerome Michalczak, right, and officers Tim Weeks, left, and Gonzalo Cardenas pose with their bikes before going on patrol on Saturday, August 1, 2020. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)