This week, Fort Worth police started training with new lifesaving equipment, but it may not be what you expect.
Don’t be surprised if you see officers on dirt bikes.
“The Tarrant Regional Water District was nice enough to give us eight duel sport motorcycles for us to use on the trails here in Fort Worth, parks and whatever might come up [such as] search and rescue,” Fort Worth police officer Walter May said.
Officers in the motor unit have trained across the city traversing the parts of trails in parks, motocross tracks and even Texas Motor Speedway.
“These bikes will go places nobody else can go,” May said. “Go places and get a search and rescue area, we can cover the ground so much faster than officers walking.”
Police said search and rescue efforts could see the biggest boost from the donations.
“Just recently we had someone on the trail, they had a phone, they got hurt and they didn’t know where they were and there was a lot of manpower used most of it on foot,” May said. “We could cover that ground a whole lot quicker and find them quicker.”
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
The off-road motorcycles will also be used to patrol in hard-to-reach areas.
“A lot of homeless people have been hanging out under the bridges and in different areas,” May said. “Right now we don’t have a big crime problem on the trails but that is something we are trying to prevent.”
The donation is worth more than $95,000.
“With all the building [Tarrant Regional Water District] are doing between Gateway Park and Downtown, I believe I heard there is going to be 1000 acres of parkland down there so they are looking ahead and they know they are going to need some help with that,” May said.
Each is equipped with lights and sirens.
“There’s not a whole lot of cities that use them, but the ones that do use them quite a bit,” he added.
