- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
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Pyramid Mall Bike PatrolBrian Gladu, Director of Security for the Pyramid Mall, is excited about the bike patrol program. He instituted the program this summer to increase his peoples' visibility and effectiveness in the areas outside the mall. He sent two of the mall's nine security officers, Lieutenant Josh Aumick, who is head of the bike patrol, and Patrol Officer Pete Wright, to the Ithaca College Police Mountain Bike Training School, an extensive training course. Josh Aumick, who is a licensed EMT, was very excited about the program. He recruited Mr. Wright to take the course with him, and oversees the program.
"Pyramid Ithaca has never had a bike patrol program before, said Mr. Gladu. "A couple of our bigger malls have had them. The Salmon Run Mall in Watertown and the Crossgates Mall in Albany have bike patrols. I was exploring different options to get the guys wanting to be outside. Sometimes driving the truck can be tedious. After you drive for a while you get pretty tired and you feel like you need to move around, so I thought, 'There isn't any reason why Ithaca couldn't do what some of our other malls have done.'"
Director of Security Brian Gladu
Some of the goals he set for the program are to get his officers excited about being outside, to get exercise, and to provide better access to the security force for customers. Officers can hear customers better from a bike than in the patrol vehicle, he explained. "On a bike they can call out to us. We can stop and talk to them, which we do frequently. They can ask us questions like, 'Where's the best place to park to go into the mall today? We want to go into Radio Shack.' You know, simple things like that, things that in a vehicle you wouldn't be asked. So I think that's really helpful."
Another advantage is that criminals don't expect to see security officers on a bike. "They're looking for that vehicle with the light bar and the big "Security" name across the side. They're not looking for a bike. We've been able to deter and detect more things that are going on in the parking lot."
Some areas of the mall property are hard to patrol in a vehicle. The fire access road is not paved, and a path leading to a residential area is too narrow for a vehicle. "We're able to patrol that path more frequently on a bike, because it's much easier than getting out of a vehicle and walking down. If anybody is down there doing something they shouldn't they're long gone by the time you get down there, because they've seen you park and get out." Residents have told him that seeing the bike patrol there makes them feel safer.
Mr. Gladu will be tracking statistics to see how well the program is doing. At this point he is tracking mileage and hours, as is done for the patrol vehicle. This will help gauge the effectiveness of the program. Mr. Gladu divides his force about half and half between the inside of the mall and the outside. "It's been proven in studies that have been done for shopping centers that your more serious incidents occur outside." At this mall parking incidents tend to involve shoppers who need assistance rather than crimes.
Josh Aumick and Pete Wright (Picture by Brian Gladu)
Officers Aumick and Wright attended the week long training course taught by the Ithaca College Police. They learned every maneuver imaginable, from riding down stairs to jumping on and off of curbs to riding through bushes. Several tires and tubes were blown during the course. They physically trained on their own time to prepare for the strenuous course. Mr. Gladu told us, "One of the things you have to do to get through the course is to maneuver your bike from the bottom of Buffalo Street to the top of Buffalo Street without stopping. As you know Buffalo Street is very steep."
So far the fledgling program seems to be a success. The bike patrol has handled some incidents that would have been difficult to manage from the truck, and feedback from the community has been positive.
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