Adams sheriff to launch mounted unit

: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:27 pm BY RICK FULTON Times Staff Writer | 0 comments The next time you seen uniformed men on horseback in the area it might not be a re-enactment, but members of the Adam County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff James Muller announced this week, “This (mounted) unit will be initially comprised of the sheriff and one other individual (Deputy David Reindollar).” Muller stated that the mounted unit “will be used in a number of roles, including searching in the more remote areas of the county for missing children and adults, tracking of fugitives and escaped prisoners, crowd control, and for ceremonial duties and events. “I just thought it was something long overdue,” Muller said Thursday. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do since I got into office.” When they (law enforcement) were chasing that bank robber (August 10 in Highland Township) it would have been nice to have had a couple of horses to go in there. On a horse you’re elevated (to see over undergrowth).” The horses and equipment will be privately owned, and stabled and maintained “at no cost to the tax payers of Adams County,” he said. The sheriff and the deputy members of the mounted unit will be buying their own horses from James Kralik, owner of the Artillery Ridge Campground and National Riding Stables, both in the Gettysburg area. Training will take place during a week-long session next week at the riding stable. Also training alongside the sheriff’s office will be members of other in-state and out-of-state law enforcement agencies who employ mounted officers. As with the sheriff’s K-9 unit, the mounted unit will be available to the various law enforcement organizations throughout the county “at no cost,” Muller stated. “If an incident comes up, we’ll have these horses on-hand to go out (on call),” he stated. Like K-9 dogs, the horses will also be deputized and it will be an offense to assault or injure one. Although Sheriff Muller and Deputy Reindollar are both “horse savvy,” neither has served in a mounted unit before. Plans call for the Adam County Sheriff’s Office Mounted Unit to become operational in early October.