Charlie's Afternoon

Charlie has to start work in two hours and he really needs a bath. 

Charlie, along with two of his three fellow equine members of the Lancaster Mounted Police Unit, was out the day before with his primary rider, Officer Wayne McVey, splashing in the Conestoga River during a trail ride in County Central Park.

“Yesterday, we just let the horses be horses,” said McVey, as he led Charlie into the Mounted Unit barn in Long’s Park to get him prepped for that evening’s patrol duty.  But oh the mud; caked deep in under Charlie’s bay coat. 

So before even thinking about his bath, McVey pulled the heavy apparatus out of the tack room – starting with the shop-vac.  This was followed by a thorough combing with a hand-held, toothed device that looked like it was modeled after the lower jaw of an alligator.

Finally, a good hose down and brushing and Charlie was ready to dry in the afternoon sun.  He took it with nothing but equine equanimity – in fact, he seemed downright pleased.  “Well, who wouldn’t want a full body-rub before heading out to work every day?” McVey asked philosophically.

Mounted Officer Wayne McVey and Charlie

McVey, who is a 15-year veteran of the unit, knows his mount well.  The grooming is where the horse and rider cement the bond that carries them through the stresses and uncertainties of seven or eight hours on patrol in the city’s streets. 

“All he wants to do when we’re out there is to please me,” McVey said.  It’s the foundation for a beautiful partnership.

Charlie is 11-years old, the newest and, at 2200 pounds and nearly 18 hands tall, the biggest of the four horses in the unit.  Next in size is Duke, 14, as white and imposing as Moby Dick, then Liam, 13, and the smallest, the red, 14-year-old Ozzy.  Liam has been off active duty this summer recuperating from a leg injury

Liam, convalescing

Ozzy

McVey had started his tour in the Mounted Unit riding Zeke, whose death in 2009 broke the officer’s heart and had him considering his options.  Then Charlie arrived from a farm in Kennett Square and training him revived McVey’s spirit.

The horses have a mystical way of doing that, not just for those close to them, but for most everyone they encounter.  Make no mistake, their work is serious and tough, but as much as anything, the Mounted Unit are, as McVey described them, “the city’s ambassadors.”

Founded in 1979, Lancaster’s Mounted Unit is one of only four in Pennsylvania (the others belong to the cities of Philadelphia and Bethlehem and the PA State Police).  The cost, which is considerable, has always been borne by private funds donated to the Lancaster Police Foundation (to make a contribution click here).

Patrol

There’s a good bit of ceremonial work and pageantry involved – parades, honor guards and events taking them across the state and often bringing them to Washington.  There are frequent exhibitions and educational appearances at schools, camps and other organizations.

But the duty side of it entails some of the hardest work a police force routinely performs, like crowd control and traffic enforcement.  The Mounted Unit’s service record includes duty at the raucous protests outside the 2009 G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.

Their most familiar setting, of course, is on the streets of downtown Lancaster, where the animals’ strong, yet placid demeanor in the face of blaring horns, unmuffled motorcycles and belching diesel trucks invites strangers to smile and passersby to stop and, if only for a moment, to be present.

Naturally, children are Charlie’s core constituency.  McVey acknowledges, in a city made up of large minority communities whose relations with the police force have often enough been fraught, it can be the case that the kids come up to give Charlie a hug or a pat on the haunches as the adults keep their distance, vaguely disapproving.

Charlie's new friend

This lazy, late summer afternoon, a ten-year-old named Julian – his mom told him not to reveal a last name – found Charlie and McVey standing post in Penn Square. Julian stroked Charlie’s snout, rubbed his neck, wanted to know how fast he could go.  Julian’s little sister looked on in sheer awe at big brother communing with his colossal new friend.

Afternoon turned into evening and Penn Square went from quiet to nearly still.  Charlie still had four more hours of duty with Officer Wayne McVey and another twenty pounds of police gear on his back. 

“Say we head over to the Barnstormers game?” McVey suggested. 

Charlie didn’t protest.  He turned up Queen Street and clopped off into the gathering Lancaster night.