Motorcycle officers show off skills

[totalmotorcycle]

Motorcycle officers show off skills BR rider takes top citations
Monday, November 6, 2006 - By JARED JANES - Advocate staff writer - 2theadvocate.com




Jim Knobloch leaned against the metal fence set up in a vacant area of the Cortana Mall parking lot and watched motorcycle cops maneuver their way through a maze of orange traffic control cones late Saturday afternoon.

Knobloch looked the part of a veteran biker — with his blue denim shirt, black skull and crossbones sunglasses, thick white beard and Harley-Davidson cap — and sounded like it, too.

The 40-year veteran of two wheels and the road professed his love for the motorcycle and then offered a gesture of respect for the uniformed motorcycle police he traveled from Slidell to watch.

“Anybody can get on a bike and go fast,” Knobloch said. “But going slow and making these turns is difficult. I’d have to spend some time practicing just to think about doing this.”

Practice was a large reason why around 120 motorcycle officers from cities and parishes across the state — and even from as far away as Canada — gathered at Cortana Mall for three days of training and one day of competition at the eighth annual Gulf Coast Police Motorcycle Skills Competition.

Philanthropy was another reason. The annual event so far has raised more than $180,000 for the Dream Day Foundation, which supports St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis. The event might raise more than $50,000 this year from sponsorships and raffle tickets, said Dan Coppola, a Baton Rouge motorcycle officer and event organizer.

Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff LeDuff watched the action from inside the fence and shouted encouragement to some of the riders.

LeDuff, who spent 20 years as a motorcycle officer in Baton Rouge, knew what sort of advice to offer. Before becoming police chief, LeDuff was head instructor at the training academy.

He said each of the events in which motorcycle officers compete represents an obstacle that an officer may face any day. The competition brought out the best in each of the riders, but also gave them a chance to learn from other motorcycle policemen.

Being a motorcycle officer — primarily an enforcer of traffic laws — can be dangerous work. The four-day event was dedicated to the memory of Cpl. Christopher Metternich of the Baton Rouge Police Department. Metternich died in the line of duty on Aug. 14 when his motorcycle hit a car whose driver failed to yield.

LeDuff, who helped train Metternich, said the work of a motorcycle policeman — listening to the radio, watching for violators, driving through traffic and taming the machine — is much different than pleasure riding.

“What we’re doing is taking an unstable piece of machinery, and we’re asking men and women across the country to take it, tame it and work off it,” LeDuff said. “It’s a great urban tool, but it’s a dangerous job.”

It’s a job that police Cpl. David Wallace said he knew way back when he was 6 years old that he wanted to do for a living.

Wallace said when he was a child, he would know his father was home from work when he heard the rumble of the bike, and he would watch his father, one of the Baton Rouge Police Department’s first motorcycle officers, shine his boots every night.

Four years after Wallace joined the force in 1992, he was attending a two-week motorcycle assessment school, which he called one of the most demanding things he had done.

The department’s Motorcycle Division is one of the hardest to get into because of its low turnover rates and high expectations, Wallace said.

The Motorcycle Division also is one of the most dangerous in the department, Wallace said. Every day, motorcycle officers contend with packed highways and distracted drivers all the while riding what he called “a thousand-pound missile.”

Like more than 100 other motorcycle officers taking part in the competition, he used the mall’s parking lot obstacle course as an opportunity to sharpen his skills on the bike. With first-place finishes in several categories of competition, it seemed as though those skills are in good shape.

“I’ve had a good day,” Wallace said.