By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

West Chester Township Police Officer Bruce Smiley, riding Rosie, knocks on the door at the Meadow Ridge Apartments in this 2002 photo. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

WEST CHESTER TWP. - Trustees here voted late Tuesday to permanently keep a police mounted patrol unit that began as a pilot project last summer.

A 13-year-old quarter horse named Rosie has been patrolling high-crime areas over the past year, mostly at the township's apartment complexes.

Residents and township officials say they are pleased with the results.

"The horse patrol program has been an outstanding success," Trustee Catherine Stoker said. "It provides a very visible presence of our police force in neighborhoods where a police presence is important. Anytime we have a hot spot, we can send in Rosie and everything calms down."

The advantages of police patrols on horseback today are the same as they were a half-century ago, West Chester Police Chief John Bruce said. Not only do they reduce crime, he said, they also are an effective police-community relations tool.

Since the horse patrol has been such a success, he also wants to begin a couple bicycle patrols this summer with existing officers.

"The demand for this type of policing is going to be greater in the future, and we need to be prepared for that future," Bruce said.

The patrols are a key way for officers to keep watch on areas of the township needing extra attention - and are cheaper than patrol cars, which average about $14,000 each, he said.

By comparison, the police department has rented Rosie for $1 a year from Officer Bruce Smiley. The township plans to search for a second horse soon that would go through a period of training before hitting the streets.

So far, no taxpayer money has been spent on the horse program, the chief stressed. Instead, the police department has taken about $1,400 out of its drug forfeiture account. Bruce anticipates most of the horse patrol will be supported with the fund and donations.

The horses for the unit would cost from $2,000 to $3,000 each to maintain, and more money would be needed to pay for start-up costs such as a trailer and stable, perhaps at one of the township's parks.

It will take two or three years to achieve, but the chief hopes the agency eventually will have four horses in the mounted patrol unit.

Other Butler County police agencies with horse patrols include Oxford and Hamilton. The Cincinnati Police Department also has a mounted patrol.

West Chester's crime rate has remained relatively low even as the population booms. But like most communities, West Chester experiences most of its crime at apartment complexes such as Meadow Ridge, which opened off Muhlhauser Road in 1997 and has a tax credit program for low-income residents.

Last summer, the complex was the scene of several robberies, a reported rape and at least one reported abduction. Guns were involved in some of the incidents. The number of offense reports taken there in 2002 outpaced the ones taken there in all of 2001 by September.

After the jump in violence at Meadow Ridge last summer, West Chester police reinstated a regular patrol that had been yanked due to lack of officers.

Now, Smiley trots Rosie through the complex and others each workday from noon to 6 p.m.

When children get off the school bus, sometimes they and their parents can be seen petting Rosie and chatting with Smiley, who doles out stickers and DARE cards.

"I like the police bringing the horse out and talking to us now," Nicole Farris, 26, a former Lincoln Heights resident, said as her son Domonic Sawyer, 8, was petting Rosie and talking with Officer Smiley and Officer Paul Lovell on a recent afternoon.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com