Speed when you visit Ozark in Missouri and you might just get pulled over by a former Manteca Police officer riding a refurbished MPD traffic unit motorcycle.

The  Manteca City Council Tuesday authorized donating three of the police department’s out of service Harley Davidsons to the Missouri city.

It is the result of a request made by David Bright — a former Manteca PD officer who spent 10 years with the local department’s traffic unit. He  accepted a job in 2022 with the Ozark Police Department.

MPD in 2019 stopped purchasing Harley Davidson police motorcycles in favor of BMW police motorcycles.

Since then, the Harley motorcycles were used as training motorcycles and secondary vehicles when the BMW motorcycles were being maintained. 

The Harley Davidsons are no longer used due to damage sustained during training and would require substantial maintenance to make them road worthy again.

Bright reached out to his former employer to see if Manteca was willing to donate Ozark PD three of the Harleys to start a traffic unit. 

Ozark PD is willing to put in the time and money to make them operatable again.

The Missouri city of 21,866 will pay for the cost of transporting the motorcycles.

Yes, Manteca Police

Are doing their job

There was a period where it seems at least once a day someone was posting on social media that Manteca Police “weren’t doing their job” when it came to issues with homeless sleeping on private property or trucks parking illegally.

To underscore that isn’t the case, in a 12-hour last week MPD officers not assigned to the homeless outreach effort were seen rousting homeless that were sleeping in two different doorways on private property.

During the same stretch, semis parked illegally on Moffat Boulevard  crowding a crosswalk as well as one in a no parking zone on Airport Way had tickets plastered on their windows.

MPD, it should be noted, has always enforced complaints about — or if they see — homeless sleeping on private property. It requires a letter on file from a property owner to state no one has their authorization to sleep on their property.

Officers enforce such incidents as it fits into a priority hierarchy.

Obviously, if there are not more pressing matters and officers are available the rules against illegal camping when it is on private property are enforced as long as the proper paperwork is in place.

As for illegal truck parking, the city and the police department have clearly stepped up their game as evidenced by the dearth of trucks parked on the streets.

At one time, more than 24 trucks were parked on one day in locations along Moffat and Airport Way where — after taking  close look at sight lines and such — the city posted it as illegal to park.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com