By the FOX23.com News Staff
BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — The Broken Arrow Police Department is preparing to send its mounted patrol unit down the turnpike to help with the upcoming portion of the 2028 Olympics games that will take place in Oklahoma City.
BAPD is just one of a few departments in the state that has officers doing their duty on horseback.
“I think when people come to Oklahoma for the Olympic games, they should expect to see a police officer in a cowboy hat on a horse, especially if they’re coming from outside the United States,” BAPD Chief Lance Arnold told FOX23 News.
Arnold said it’s as much about safety, security, and crowd control as it is helping Oklahoma with its cowboy image.
“The benefits we get with the horses is they are above the crowd,” he said. “If you’ve got a large group of people, these officers are in an elevated position, and they can see a lot of what’s going on as it happens.”
Arnold said people at events respect the horses not just as something to pet and smile at, but people respect the size of the horse and when an officer on a horse needs to get to something.
“They’re as much of a crowd mover as they are a crowd pleaser,” he said. “People will get out of the way when an officer needs to respond to something. They will give the officer and the horse room to work and get to where they need to quickly.”
Between now and the 2028 games, the chief says BAPD will continue to brush up on their training while also helping other agencies train and re-establish their own mounted patrol units.
“We’ve used them in searching the woods for missing people, and finding people lost in tall grass and those missing along river banks,” Arnold said. “We have them for a variety of uses.”
