Forks Police Bike Derby Scrapped

Chalk up another community policing casualty.

The Forks Township Police Department has canceled its annual summer bike derby.

On the heels of Forks scrapping its summer police youth academy, the bike derby is also coming to a screeching halt, township officials stated.

"Unfortunately we failed to mention in our last post that the annual Bike Derby scheduled for June 19th is also canceled," an announcement states on the Forks police Facebook page. "We apologize in advance and sincerely hope these programs can resume in the coming years."

Forks Community Police Officer Brooks Kranich said the bike derby was canceled for the same reasons as the youth academy: manpower shortages.

He said it takes at least four officers to run the bike derby with registration and running the skills course.

Kranich did not know how long the debry has taken place, but said he's been involved with it the past six years.

"As for when these programs will return...good question," he said. "We are down a number of officers right now, so unless the supervisors decide to approve the hiring of new personnel, these programs are unfortunately the casualty."