Officers on motorbikes, in cars and behind the controls of a drone all teamed up for a Bulwell operation.
Reports about riders speeding around the fields, woods and parks are commonly received by the neighbourhood team.
Whether it’s off-road bikes, quad bikes, or e-bikes, the sight and sound of them whizzing around has caused a real nuisance.
It’s based on all these complaints that the Bulwell team arranged an afternoon of action targeting these bikers last Friday (29 August).
As part of the operation, neighbourhood officers went out in marked cars to make themselves visible in ‘hot spot areas’ where riders are normally spotted.
They weren’t alone on their patrols though, as they were given a helping hand on the ground and in the sky – in the form of the off-road bike and drone teams.
After basing themselves at Bulwell Hall, the drone was sent airborne to provide a view of the park, golf course and surrounding areas too.
The drone officer then – with the help of police in plain-clothes on the ground – directed the fast-moving off-road bike team to locations where bikers had been spotted.
This approach was put into practice around an hour into the operation, when a balaclava-wearing man on an electric bike was sighted speeding across Bulwell Hall Park.
The drone trailed his every move after that and kept the officers on motorbikes up to date of where he was heading.
Realising he was being tracked, the rider was seen to abandon the e-bike and flee on foot, but didn’t get far before the off-road bike team caught up with him.
A 21-year-old man was subsequently issued with a traffic offence report, while the electric bike involved in the incident was seized by police.
Sergeant Katie Taylor, who heads up the Bulwell neighbourhood policing team, said:
“Tackling ASB has long been one of our policing priorities, with the community’s concerns about off-road bikers playing a part in that.
“In addition to being antisocial and causing a nuisance, these bikes flying around like they do put both passing members of the public and the riders themselves at risk of harm.
“We clearly don’t want to see anyone get hurt, which is why we’ve focused on this issue and why we carry out these types of targeted operations on such a regular basis.
“Having the off-road bike and drone teams assisting us on these operations is a huge help, as shown by Friday’s afternoon of action.
“Thanks to them, and the efforts of the rest of our neighbourhood officers here in Bulwell, we were quickly able to identify, track down, and stop a rider, while seizing an e-bike too.”
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