For episode 5 of “Inside the NYPD” we mounted up with the posse of lawmen who patrol New York City on horseback. Our interviews were puncutated by several tourist photo requests, and indeed, throughout the course of our day of shooting, tourists with cameras were a constant.
The mounted unit is very effective at crowd control during parades. A cop mounted 8 feet in the air atop a 1200 pound horse is enough to calm even the rowdiest New Year’s reveller. As with the K-9 unit, the horse has a way of pacifying the situation just by being there.
We asked the officers if they had ever actually conducted arrests while on mounted patrol, and the answer is usually no. On the day we videotaped, there were three officers deployed to the Times Square area, and that time was mostly spent talking to tourists. As Captain Barry Gelbman put it, it is the job of the mounted officer to be “an ambassador of goodwill.”
Tom Small
Scribe Media
