The Minneapolis Police Department Mounted Patrol Unit is one of the Department's most visible units. Created in 1996 with two riders and three police horses, today the unit has eight horses with twenty fully trained, sworn officers. The Mounted Patrol is organizationally within the First Precinct, and focuses on crowd control, crime control, and community policing. 
You may see the mounted patrol at a neighborhood/street patrol, crowd control after bar closings, sporting events, outbreaks of civil unrests, parades and concerts.
Crowd Control
As a mounted unit officer is widely known as superior crowd control, the officers are used extensively at concerts, parades, sporting events, demonstrations. It has been estimated that one mounted officer has the effect of ten officers on foot.
Crime Control
Each mounted officer is ten feet tall, and therefore can be seen for blocks. Mounted officers not only have the ability to see at a greater distance, but they also have the ability to see over privacy fences and other barriers. Additionally, an officer on horseback can go places that squad cars and officers on foot may not.
Community Policing
Public attention is often magnetically drawn to the mounted patrol more so then an officer on foot, so it is natural that the mounted patrol be used to dissolve barriers and increase the personal contact between the general public and the Minneapolis Police Department.
Bookmarks
Minneapolis Downtown Council
Minneapolis Police Department -Mounted Patrol
