They're tall, handsome, and sport a beautiful coat and fresh new shoes. Four new recruits to the Ventura Police Department make an entrance.
This is the city's first-ever Mounted Patrol Unit.
"Horses are one of those things that people love. They're kind of like our canines. We use them for multiple reasons," explained Commander Edward Caliento.
He said the new mounted patrols will be able to cover parts of the city that aren’t easy to patrol in a car or on foot. That makes them particularly useful for patrolling parks and open spaces.
"The summer is a time we hope to get them out and about in our community, either on the beaches or in our green spaces," explained Caliento. "And there's areas in our city that are very difficult to patrol. Obviously, the beaches, the river bottom areas. So what this does is allow them to get places less accessible by car or by foot."
Each horse in the unit is privately owned by its assigned officer, who provides daily care, feeding, grooming, and housing. Each of the officers have completed a training course for themselves and their horses. One of them, like Sergeant Craig Kelly, sits astride Dahlia. Kelly said the horse gives them a great vantage point.
"In that high-elevated spot, the first time you do some range training on the back of the horse is very intimidating," said Kelly. "So we've learned that as well as getting them exposed to fireworks, cars, people yelling at them, and smoke. We've been doing that over the last several months so that they know that it's not going to be a dangerous situation for them and just to get them used to it," said Kelly.
Kelly said he’s already noticing how the mounted units provide an approachable and visible presence, enhancing community engagement by fostering positive interactions with the public.
"We have trained a lot in plain clothes, getting the horses used to being out on city streets and the bike paths and downtown and the amount of people who approach us and want to take photos and talk to us is not matched by any other experience I've had in the area and we weren't even in uniform yet," said Kelly. "So I think that the second we're in uniform and out there, we're really going to bridge it up with the community and have a lot of really good connections. Plus, we're high visibility. You can see us from far away, so I think it'll also really deter any people who might want to misbehave."
And, Kelly admitted, for someone who loves horses, it’s a fulfilling role.
"I cannot believe that I can get paid to do this part-time," he said. "It's never going to be a full-time assignment for us, but special events or when we need a presence downtown or anything like that will be deploying. So we still all have all of our regular duties, and all of us actually are working patrol. But this is a collateral assignment, so it would be on top of our normal duties."
These eight-foot-tall cops will also have their own badges. However, there’s no word on how they’ll remove it from their wallet.
