Gulfport Police Assist at RNC

The 2012 Republican National Convention kicked off with a late start this week, due to Tropical Storm Isaac. Monday's session was cancelled, however the GOP Convention will go on as planned until August 30th. The event was slated to bring in 50,000 people to Tampa including delegates and credentialed media.

Security is top priority at the event. Gulfport Police Officers hope to aid with those efforts by assisting with crowd control and other police functions.

A total of six officers are helping during the RNC. Four officers will patrol on bicycles and two will help maintain security on the waterways in the Gulfport Police Department's boat as part of Marine Operations.

“It’s not every day that you get a large event such as the RNC or even the DNC, where the area gets put in the national spotlight. I’m sure it’ll be interesting for the officers,” Lt. Josh Stone told Patch in a

Lt. Josh Stone says officers are looking forward to the added experience and skills they'll be able to utilize and possibly sharpen during the event.

"They’ll have that firsthand knowledge and be able to bring it back to make our operations a little better. Plus help our neighboring agencies."

Officers who patrol on bikes completed additional operations and crowd control training in June and finished training for field force operations in July.

"They were also fitted for special patrol bikes," Stone said.

Stone says many of the officers going will be working during their regular shifts and will not receive overtime. If there is a cost incurred for participating, Stone believes grant money will be used to offset it.