by Terri Wiebold

Castle Pines North (CPN) residents may soon have another line of defense for fighting crime in the open spaces throughout the CPN community. Horses Rodney, Rowdy and Whiskey are the three latest additions to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office’s newly-formed Mounted Patrol Division.

According to DCSO Public Information Officer, Dave Jolly, the Mounted Patrol’s primary function in the community will be to attend school events, citizen’s programs, and large community events like parades and fairs. Its initial law enforcement duties will focus on residential open space areas along with search and rescue needs.

“Our goal is to make it a full time operation,” said Deputy Ashley Leary. “We would like to see our team get bigger.”

Deputies Dan Havens, Mike Moore, and Ashley Leary recently attended a certification course with the El Paso County Mounted Patrol which now allows them to work with their personal horses in a law enforcement capacity. Included in the training was instruction on search patterns for search and rescue efforts, crowd control methods, and firearms training. The horses had to allow their riders to shoot their weapons while on horseback in order to complete the training. Deputy Leary said this was the most difficult part of the training for her horse, Rodney. “Horses are flight animals by nature,” said Leary, “and getting them to freeze in place is what we hoped for in this training.”

At this point, the program is funded solely by donations. The assigned deputies have donated their personal horses along with handling expenses associated with boarding and equipment for the horses. Anyone interested in donating to the Mounted Patrol can contact Lieutenant Troy McCarty at 303-660-7569.