St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST LOUIS, Mo. — Generations of St. Louis children have fond memories of meeting a mounted St. Louis police officer in Forest Park. The officer’s uniform would be sharply creased, his (or lately, her) trousers tucked into shining black riding boots. The horse would be impeccably groomed and tacked-out, and usually would be willing to be petted.
Mounted patrols are a great community relations tool for police departments, but a growing number of police departments around the country have decided mounted patrols are a luxury they no longer can afford. That decision now confronts the St. Louis Police Department.
Last week, the department closed the mounted police stables in Forest Park after high levels of lead were found on surfaces in the building. Seventeen police officers, 10 of whom who at least occasionally work the mounted patrol, and four civilian employees were tested for lead levels.
The department’s 10 horses were moved to a facility in Chesterfield where they’ll remain on hiatus while evaluations of the building continue.
The officers, all part of the city’s traffic patrol division, have been reassigned to foot or vehicle patrol in the park. There’s some question about how soon - if ever - they’ll mount up again.
“Before this problem with the building came up, we hadn’t been looking at the financial feasibility of continuing the mounted patrol,” said Police Chief Dan Isom. “But now that it has, we will start to do that. If it looks like we have to replace the building, we’ll have to look at the financial feasibility of the maintenance of mounted patrol as a unit.”
Earlier this summer, the police commissioner in Boston put his department’s 12 horses out to pasture; reassigning the officers and support staff reportedly saved $600,000.
In Baltimore, groups are trying to raise $200,000 to keep that city’s mounted police in operation for the next year. That would cover veterinary and farrier care, food and food supplements and other upkeep for six animals.
Mounted police units in several smaller cities, including Toledo, Ohio, and Roanoke, Va., also have been eliminated as police departments scramble to balance their budgets. Officials there determined that mounted units, while a great community relations tool, may not be the most effective use of police resources.
With city revenue down, the St. Louis police department budget was cut by some $900,000 this year to $128.8 million. Layoffs were averted only with the help of $8.6 million in federal stimulus money. The department also is confronting upward of $15 million in needed repairs to police headquarters downtown with only $8 million remaining in capital improvement funds raised by a 2007 bond issue.
According to the department’s official history, the St. Louis Police first put cops on horseback in 1867 to deal with “highwaymen and bandits who would rob farmers and other merchants on their way to the city to sell goods.”
The unit was disbanded in 1948 but revived in 1971 to provide more police presence in Forest Park. The old aircraft hangar at the east end of Aviation Field (the city’s first commercial airfield) was turned into stables, and the land around it was fenced for “turnout” area. Now, said Mr. Isom, the entire facility must be tested for lead contamination.
If lead abatement and repairs are too expensive, this tradition-loving city will have to put a price tag on fond memories. The park still will be patrolled - “you don’t require a horse or a building to patrol the park,” Mr. Isom said - but something special will be lost.
Copyright 2009 St. Louis Post-Dispatch