Police watercraft

Police boat of the NYPD

Police watercraft are boats or other vessels that are used by police agencies to patrol bodies of water. They are usually employed on major rivers,^[1] in enclosed harbors near cities or in places where a stronger presence than that offered by the Harbourmaster or Coast Guard is needed.

Police boats sometimes have high-performance engines in order to catch up with fleeing fugitives on the water. They have been used since the beginning of the 20th century.^[2]

Types of police boats

Gallery of police boats

Police patrol boats in Helsinki, Finland.
Police- and fireboat of the Wasserschutzpolizei and Feuerwehr of Bremen, Germany.
New South Wales Police Force vessel OPV Nemesis, the largest purpose-built police boat in the Southern Hemisphere.
Anti terrorism Police boat in Venice
New South Wales Police Force boat patrolling Port Jackson prior to APEC Australia 2007.
Boats of the Bermuda Police Service Marine Section at Barr's Bay, in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Police boat, Liverpool, England, October 2009
Metropolitan Police boat John Harriott IV speeding down the Thames to an incident in June 2012.
Gabriel Franks on the Thames in 2005
Nina Mackay II on the Thames in 2013
Policework can be fun (The Netherlands, river Lek) in 2012
Police boats in the Biesbosch (The Netherlands) in 2008

Agencies with police boats

New York City Police Department and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department - waterways around NYC
Chicago Police Department - Chicago River and Lake Michigan^[3]
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office
Toronto Police Service - waters off Toronto
Peel Regional Police - waters off Mississauga
Royal Canadian Mounted Police - inland waterways in areas of enforcement
United States Park Police - waters in National Park Service areas around NYC
Ontario Provincial Police - lakes and other waterways in Ontario
Hong Kong Police - waters off Hong Kong
New Zealand Police - waters off Auckland and Wellington
San Francisco Police Department - waters off San Francisco
San Diego Harbor Police - San Diego Bay and tidelands
Long Beach Harbor Patrol - Port of Long Beach
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Air and Marine - Customs waters of the United States
Canada Border Services Agency - Customs enforcement in Canadian waters.

References

↑ Thames Police Museum
↑ 1903 New York Harbor Police boat patrol capturing pirates
↑ "CPD Gets New Patrol, Rescue Boats". Retrieved 18 October 2012.

External links

Media related to Police boats at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, January 26, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.