In the Omaha Police Department’s Southeast Precinct, a unit of officers and their partners stand more than 8-feet-tall and never lose a foot pursuit. They work for sugar cubes, carrots and a thorough brushing after their shift.

A large red barn might seem out of place in the shadow of Omaha’s WoodmenLife Tower, Hyatt Place and First National Bank Building. Morning rush hour traffic is light here with Leavenworth Street ending at a roundabout a block away from the Missouri River. Conveyances parked in the 15-stall structure more commonly seen on Nebraska farms and ranches are rated at just one horsepower each, thoroughbreds of law enforcement no matter their breed.

The Omaha Police Department’s Mounted Patrol is most visible while working crowd control at events such as the city’s Cinco de Mayo celebration and College World Series, and the weekend bar crowd downtown. The public’s affection for animals makes each of these crime-fighting duos the perfect four-legged public relations tool. The imposing presence of a mounted unit often is enough to diffuse a tense situation, with each human-horse team having the law enforcement effect of 7 to 10 officers on the ground.

Established with two donated animals in 1989, the unit grew into a horse force with a dozen equines, six officers and a sergeant.

Leading the unit of police horses and their badged riders is backbreaking work for Sgt. Kevin Vodicka, literally. He was riding a horse during a National Police Week parade when the loud pipes and drums of a band spooked the animal. The horse bucked and Vodicka suffered a broken back in the fall. He is back in the saddle again despite some lingering pain, but it’s not enough to keep him from riding, Vodicka said. “Nothing could.”

The animals weighing 1,200 to 1,500 pounds tower over even the beefiest officers. One misplaced hoof could crush an officer’s foot, but injuries are rare for man and beast, alike. Vodicka had never even stepped into a stirrup until the day he interviewed with the OPD’s Mounted Patrol. Except for his law enforcement background, his only qualifications were a love of animals and a willingness to learn.

Officer Scott Sungy also lacked horse experience before joining the unit. He was a U.S. Air Force military policeman patrolling Offutt Air Force Base when he fell in love with Omaha. Sungy joined OPD after 10 years of military service.

Horses and riders train together before ever setting hooves down on Omaha pavement or the Old Market’s brick streets. The animals learn how to work through crowds in response to rein and leg cues since voice commands could be useless during a loud protest or outdoor concert. A slight tug on the reins one way followed by a leg cue on the opposite side sets the horse moving sideways. This “side pass” is used to maneuver horses between vehicles or to move crowds of people safely aside.

Sungy was eager to put his new skills to use after six months spent training with a quarter horse named Dollar. Providing security at Omaha’s SeptemberFest celebration was their first assignment.

Carnival rides were twirling and live music playing when gunshots echoed through downtown. A panicked crowd of 200-300 people surged in Sungy’s direction. The startled horse reared and made a sudden 180-degree turn. Sungy’s training kicked in and he quickly got the animal under control. Reassured by its rider’s demeanor and commands, the horse calmed down. Together they secured the area. Now, even fireworks barrages after baseball games at TD Ameritrade Park don’t shock the patrol’s street-smart equines.

Omaha’s Mounties respond when police duty of another kind hits the streets. If out on patrol and there are no emergencies, they always come back to pick up after the horses. “I’m not above scooping poop, and we work hard to be good neighbors,” Sungy said.

With his usual partner, Maximus, due for a routine veterinary checkup, Sungy leads Orozco from his stall. The cream and brown horse is named for the late Kerrie Orozco.

Officers were attempting to serve a warrant on a man for a 2014 shooting when the suspect began firing. Detective Orozco was hit in the exchange, with one bullet hitting above her protective vest. The seven-year Omaha Police veteran died May 20, 2015, on her last day of police duty before starting a delayed maternity leave to spend time with her 3-month-old daughter, Olivia.

The slain officer’s husband, Hector Orozco, donated the family’s horse to the Omaha Police Department. Before marrying, the couple posed for engagement photos at the police barn. On the one-year anniversary of her death, a life-size Horse of Honor statue painted with officer Orozco’s badge and a banner reading, “Heroes Live Forever,” was unveiled at Midtown Crossing’s Turner Park.

The OPD’s horse barn on Leavenworth Street, a 2005 gift to the community from ConAgra Foods, also includes a classroom, locker rooms, offices and heated storage space for a pair of horse trailers and 500 bales of hay. The framed portraits of retired police horses decorate one wall. Large U.S. and Nebraska state flags hang from the rafters. Blue streamers symbolize the security that law enforcement provides.

Barn manager Nikki Pauley mucks out these Metro stalls every day. While the Omaha native and only civilian employed here has never been on the wrong side of the law, a curiosity for equines inspired her to sneak through a back gate at Ak-Sar-Ben Race Track when she was 16.

Pauley was watching the animals from afar when a trainer spotted her. Instead of kicking her out or calling the police, the man handed the nervous teenager a lead rope and invited her to walk a horse. Fascinated by the lifestyle of the jockeys, owners and other “horse people,” she kept coming back, and she worked at the track for the next eight summers.

The Ak-Sar-Ben stables were the mounted patrol’s first Omaha home. Pauley came along for the ride when the unit moved to its current location at Leavenworth and S. Seventh Street in 2005.

While the night shift is on patrol and the day crew has yet to arrive, Pauley delivers clean cedar shavings and hay, stall to stall, with her workhorse John Deere utility vehicle and a pitchfork. Each horse gets fed three times a day, along with water and a good scratch. The close contact is an opportunity to look for illness or injury.

The animals seem content behind bars in their own stalls, so much so that an occasional nicker or neigh echoes through the Riverfront. Pauley works her way through stalls belonging to Zane, Blue and a 12-year-old Friesen-Percheron named Diesel that she said is a gentle giant. Thor is stubborn but enjoys rolling a barrel around the barn’s indoor arena. He is known around Omaha for being the horse whose rider hands out frozen popsicles to children downtown on hot summer days.

Vodicka was riding Gunny on patrol when he received a radio call asking for assistance. A driver was being arrested for DUI and a female relative was interfering. “I asked the woman to step away, but she wouldn’t, so I moved her with the horse,” Vodicka said. “She punched the horse in the neck, and I arrested her for abuse of a police animal. I don’t think the horse even felt it.” Gunny retired in 2016 after a 15-year law enforcement career and now patrols greener pastures in the Sandhills.

“Gunny was a great police horse. He could be goofy, but when I needed him to go into cop mode, he would have walked off a cliff for me if I had asked him to,” Vodicka said. “The horses sense it. They know when it is time to stop horsing around and start working.”

Omaha’s afternoon rush hour is in full swing as Vodicka, atop Diesel, waves commuters through the intersection of Martha and 20th streets. Downtown, a farmer’s market vendor gives a horse an apple, and offers one to the cop on top, too. Children gather around the animal and ask, “Can we pet him?”

In Omaha, one horsepower is enough to move crowds, hearts and minds.