Alcohol has a different effect on different people. In past blogs I’ve described my own series of experiences as the level of intoxication increases. But I’m talking about that general level of Toasty-ness, where people start to feel warm and cozy while watching their inhibitions fall away without a care. Some people get low key and sleepy. They tend to find a nice corner to claim as home base and just watch the world go by. Some people become amazingly active. They have to dance, sing, jump over cars, anything that means getting up and expending the amazing amounts of energy they suddenly have. And some people get chatty. They want to tell you about all sorts of things, things that they wouldn’t normally drop in conversational tones while sober.
A club friend of mine, who I’ve only known for a short while, got to drinking and chatting with me a couple weeks ago. This is a guy who is always on the scene whenever I’ve laid eyes on him. He would be on the floor dancing, talking to people, or just generally moving about in the House Music “club kids” circle. As it goes with being a Club Friend, you get to know someone from the inside-out, first. You understand their loves, hates, and musical preferences long before, if ever, you find out the mundane things like where they live or work. In the past, each time I learned a person’s “day job” I was never usually surprised. The guys I knew had uptight, stressful, yet lucrative jobs that all got vented on a Saturday night in wild abandon and bar tabs they didn’t have to regret in the morning. It was almost like a split personality. The daytime toil was fueling and funding the nighttime activities.
This time I was surprised as my friend, who had made an art out of being vague when talking about his job, laid it out for me one night. All at once I understood why he had kept a detail like that under wraps. My friend was a badge wearing, official type, pull-you-over-and-arrest-you officer of the law. There was no way any of us selfish, irresponsible, club going peoples would feel calm around a police officer, off duty or not. The minute I realized he wasn’t joking, my own guilty state of intoxication with the impending position of being behind the wheel of a motorize vehicle gave me a bit of distrustful anxiety.
I got over that pretty darn quick because I was just too curious, the hot pursuits and crazy suspect chase stories were just too interesting to ignore. I wanted to know more about the district he was working in, which was a five-minute drive from my house to his city limits. Working a ten-hour, graveyard shift explained both his unwilting energies at night and the need for stress relief just the same as any other hard working person. Every time I saw him I always wanted to know about his day (night) at work, yet my timing for conversation was always located in a place that was too loud to chat in and surrounded by people that he couldn’t talk in front of.
A lot of my interest came from the normal “Jane Public” view of the police from ridiculous shows like “Cops” and “Rescue 911”. My childhood was a calm, respectable one that did not include scrapes with the law of any kind. I only listened to the over blown stories from “bad” kids, who could never seem to understand right and wrong. My experiences with Police officers had been three in total. One was the gentleman who sat in front of me in my early morning Freshman English course in college. He came directly from work, still in uniform complete with his service pistol. Having come from a public high school. Seeing a gun in the classroom, even on a Police officer, seemed entirely wrong. The second was the first and only (so far… knock on wood) time that I’ve been pulled over. I had been speeding and some how my pure honesty put a wrench in the officer’s usual style of “You know how fast you were going?” conversation. And the third was my car accident. The cop that had responded looked younger than I, and a little unprepared to deal with my decreasing level of composure. None of those experiences ever made me look at the police as an “evil” plague that I’ve sometimes heard them referred to. It was a cause and effect sort of relationship. You didn’t have to deal with the police unless something bad happened first.
On the opposite side of that, I had gone to college with the intent of entering employment with a department that worked very closely with the police, and definitely after something terrible had happened. I wanted to be a Medical Examiner. When someone died of mysterious causes, I wanted to be the one doing the autopsy investigations that would help shed light on the case. All of that of course fizzled with the lack of funding for furthered education, and various sundry other things that just happen in life. At one point I looked into simple Forensic Investigation, figuring on taking classes from a local community college, but even that I decided was too far away from my original goal to make me happy. And so it rests there. The passion for crime scene investigation sits on my shelf as merely gruesome reading material.
All of that background was sitting fresh in mind when my friend offered to take me on a “ride-along”. There was no way I was going to miss the opportunity of hanging out with him while he went about his job. With my Rock Star vanity that adored the exclusive “behind the scenes” sorts of knowledge, a ride-along would be the ultimate “up close and personal” experience that not just anyone could say they’ve done.
With the day chosen, I made a bid deal of taking the next off from my work schedule. I wanted everyone to know that I would be doing a ride-along with a police officer and would be far to exhausted from my grave-yard shift adventure to come into work. With all my bragging, it didn’t dawn on me until I was driving home at five in the evening the night of my so-called adventure that I hadn’t planned for how I was going to go from seven in the morning, when I had woken up, to the possibility of getting home twenty-four hours later. DOH!
A half hour nap seemed almost silly, but that was all I managed with my “Christmas morning” sort of anticipation. The directions that my friend, who from here on out will be Officer F(riendly) for the sake of clarity, had emailed me were only on how to get into the station after hours. The maps and directions I had hunted down on my own were terrible and I was nervous about getting lost. Other than agreeing to a ride along, we had discussed no other details. Would I be the passenger for a normal night or were there liabilities that would alter the sorts of calls he could respond to? Could I get out of the car when he was dealing with a situation? What sorts of things could I involve myself in without it hurting an investigation? So many questions were in my mind, raising my anxiety as I sat in the empty parking lot outside the Police station. I was a lot earlier that I had expected, and the last minute two-lane-crossing-sudden-right-turn I had made in order to get to the station was still a little too fresh in my mind.
As I said before the city we would be patrolling that night was only a five-minute drive from where I lived and one I knew fairly well from childhood. Known locally for its gang activity and the propensity for cars to get stolen; that had been part of my interest in a ride along through this particular area. There would be a greater chance of me experiencing some real action! If I was patrolling in my hometown I’d probably be asleep in the first hour, out of boredom. But now that I was actually going to be in the police car, I was having second thoughts. Trying to get a hold of myself, I gazed up the dark and sparsely lit Police Station. Officer F had mentioned that the building was brand new, but strangely placed. The station itself was on the very far edge of city limits leaving Officers to commute out to the city in order to serve it.
Officer F would be in a briefing until nine-fifteen and I was to check in early to handle the paperwork. Approaching the small call box, I read over the directions Officer F had emailed me and then I read the ones physically on the call box. Even after all of that careful preparation I promptly pushed the star button instead of the pound button. Realizing my mistake I searched for a way to clear my choice but was immediately greeting with a blaring busy signal that made me jump out of my skin. I was off to a bad start.
After managing to correctly announce my presence and gain access to the building, a completely dark lobby met me. On the left was a huge glassed in reception area with slots at the counter level for sliding paper work back and forth. I was immediately confused as the why the woman I had just spoken to on the call box wasn’t waiting for me. With only a couple chairs in the room I noticed a light and female voices coming from a doorway that would have led into the reception area. Maybe I was supposed to keep going? Walking toward a door that stated firmly “Police Only”, all I found was a water fountain and a dark corner. Where the heck was I supposed to check in? After gamely trying the forbidden door I walked back to the lobby, now dimly lit with a very grumpy woman standing behind the glass glaring at me. Strike two!
I filed the paper work quickly not knowing how to answer some of the questions. The form was designed more for the original request to have a ride along. The fact that it was already offered to me for less than official reasons made it tough to fill in the blank that asked “What is your reason for this ride along?” Faking my way through the rest and sliding the form back, I was given a big yellow laminated sign to hang around my neck, advised that I had to wear it visibly at all times. Then I was told to sit and the officer taking me would be out of his briefing shortly.
I sat in that chair feeling like a total retarded fourth grader on a field trip. The big yellow sign made it so the teacher wouldn’t leave me behind. I was off to a terrible start so far. All I had done so far was embarrass my self and I had a lot of time to sit and think about that. Hands folded over my middle, which was stuffed with layers, I felt like the brother from “A Christmas Story” immobilized in his snowsuit. The weather as of late had been freezing and I hadn’t wanted to take the chance of being uncomfortable at any point that night. Long johns and thick socks, long sleeved shirt, a thick sweater, a hooded sweatshirt, and my winter coat. I was ready to brave the elements, but at the moment I was starting to sweat while I sat like a trouble-making child waiting outside the Principal’s office.
Several Officers came trickling through the forbidden door, leading their yellow-signed partners off for their night of adventure. Each of them smiled apologetically at my hopeful looks as they passed by. This told me the briefing was over, but it seemed like an eternity before Officer F actually showed up. When he did, he came through the door in a real hurry. Grabbing me up and leading me back through the forbidden door I tried to focus on too many things at once. He was busy making small talk and as I answered each question in a distracted manner I tried to take in as much of my surroundings as I could. But then again there really wasn’t anything to see. Down a narrow hallway that spit out into what looked like offices and conference rooms, the doorway Officer F was headed toward was propped open with other officers coming and going. It looked to be an exit to a gated parking lot where all the squad cars and motorcycles were parked in neat little rows. Onward with a purpose we marched toward a patrol car and I waited patiently while he cleaned out the passenger seat and rearranged his belongings. A ten-hour shift as a patrolling officer really meant you lived in your car.
The simple act of actually seating myself in the car was a little unnerving. There is just something engrained in me that said, “If you’re in a Police car, you’re in deep trouble.” I couldn’t help but feel anxious as Officer F closed the passenger door for me and rounded to the other side to get in, but once he was settled in and started with the explanations for everything that surrounded me, the wonder of it all totally overpowered my silly anxiety. Popping open the laptop that was mounted in the middle of the car between the two front seats, he talked about the reasons behind the briefings and the procedure he had to follow before we could pull out of the station. The officer had to make sure that his computer was operating properly because it was his link to any information he would need during the night as well as communicating with other units and Dispatch. After his call sign, his patrol car number, and his computer were all cleared he swiveled the laptop to show me the huge list of incoming calls and what the abbreviations meant. He had his choice of calls to take unless he was assigned something specifically by Dispatch. All he had to do was decide which situation he wanted to deal with, tell Dispatch, and we were on our way.
Now from here I’ll do my best to keep things in chronological order, because that’s kind of important to me, but with the number of trivial and exciting things that happened during the long night I just want to keep focus on the more interesting bits.
The First CallThe first stop was to a restaurant I had just been at the night before. Apparently a drunken man was making a disturbance and refusing to leave the premises. Out of the station we flew while Officer F continued to explain the finer points of going from call to call. I was immediately made uneasy by the way my friend drove, riding up on other car’s bumpers and then changing lanes suddenly to get around them. Part of me wondered if he was just showing off or if this was really the way he drove night after night. As if I wasn’t feeling weird enough about zooming through the night in a car that was exempt to most all restrictions that governed safe road travel, I looked over to see him typing away with both hands on the laptop and his knee steering him through the sparse traffic. I’m sure years of experience made him a perfect driver but that was the last thing I wanted to ponder. He explained that he was checking license plate numbers to see if anything came up as stolen or if the registered owner (usually the current driver) had anything legally amiss. That information was very interesting. The officer knew before he ever got to your window if you had a suspended license or a warrant. Great for their safety but bad for you crooks that think that if you just drive safely, you’ll never get caught.
I couldn’t help myself and made a comment about his driving, asking if he drove the same way off duty. He laughed and said no, but he was always surprised when people didn’t just automatically get out of his way. In the squad car and uniform, traffic tended to flow around him, but after getting off work he sometimes had to remind himself that people just saw him as another asshole driver.
Pulling into the parking lot of the restaurant there was already two other police cars there. Handing me his can of Monster Energy drink, he got out of the car and headed over to where the gentleman was shouting. Seated on the bench outside, the man appeared to be very intoxicated as he tried several times to stand only to wobble and the officer in front of him would push him back on the bench. A couple employees were outside having a smoke and gave statements as to the man’s behavior and the reason why he had been asked to leave the restaurant. I stood behind the safety of the open car door holding the energy drink like a Dork and wondering again if I was even allowed to get out of the car. In the end they convinced the guy to move along and he was shuffled off in a police car bound for the bus station.
A Mother’s WorriesThe next call came with a long back-story. Apparently there was a particularly active gentleman in the city that was well known by the local and regional police force. For all the things he had been suspected of (car theft and stripping ring, child pornography, child prostitution, adult prostitution, and drug trafficking) he was either a very careful person or his high priced lawyer kept finding loop holes that left the police constantly frustrated. Dispatch sent us to talk with a woman that wanted to share some information about this particular gentleman.
Pulling into a Shell station, it took us a moment to spot the woman who was walking over from a near-by apartment complex. I got out of the car this time and leaned against back passenger door waiting hear what this older woman had to share. Even through all my layers, I was dismayed at how fast I went from warm to trying to hide my chattering teeth. The woman, besides being nervous, looked as if she had been dressed for bed before throwing on a coat to come to talk to us. If I was cold she had to be freezing. The woman said that she had been having trouble with her teenage daughter’s wild behavior and tonight the daughter had finally unloaded the things she had been involved in. There was talk of drugs, wild parties at the man’s house, and rumors of child pornography that were related to us. The idea of a mother hearing this from her daughter was mind blowing, but she seemed more desperate to make sure that the police knew.
The sad thing was Officer F did know and would love to be able to ease that mother’s mind by heading right over to the man’s house and arresting his filthy personage right then, but he couldn’t. Officer F was left to explain that he had boundaries to work within. The law was stated and he followed it. He couldn’t just go around arresting people without a reason. Until there is proof his hands are tied. The whole speech seemed rehearsed but I knew well enough from my own experience in dealing with the public, if one person had a question then you could bet hundreds of people were confused about the kinds of procedures and restrictions that kept the Police from dealing with stuff that way everyone would like.
Climbing back into the car was a Godsend. I was frozen and physically tired from trying to hide it. Its tough to look like a professional when your teeth were chattering louder than the witness’s testimony. I was still very unsure as to what my level of participation was. While the woman had been telling her heartbreaking story she had eyed both Officer F and I equally. I felt strange about that. I had no legal capacity; I was merely a voyeur in the whole situation. As Officer F drove us past the gentleman’s house sharing how much he’d love to see that guy locked away I had to wonder at the bigger picture. I am not the type of person to be overly cynical or overly optimistic, but the existence of this particular person seemed unreal. Had the legal system broken down in this case or was it just a matter of being just how life went?
Tickets, Taillights, and Proof of InsuranceThe AMPM gas station, which sat on the corner of the street which marked the end of our jurisdiction and the start of the next city’s, was Officer F’s favorite haunt. The strip was a major highway and that always brought out those who wanted to be noticed by traffic or who wanted to stay unnoticed. Around and around we went through the parking lot and up and down that strip running license plates and checking up on the registered owners.
The first hit was an unlicensed gentleman who was advised to grab his things from his already parked car and walk the rest of the way home. The next was physically putting gas in the vehicle when Officer F called him over to the patrol car. The guy had a driver’s license from Mexico, but nothing for the United States. When told he needed to leave the car at the gas station and get another ride, he suddenly pretended to not understand English. Officer F then stated in Spanish his wishes. Both the guy and I did a double take; it certainly paid to be bi-lingual in this line of work.
Then there was nervous driver with a taillight out. I’ve forever wondered if the Police actually did pull a person over for something like that. I’ve had plenty of head lights out and passed a lot of cops in my day, but I’ve never been hassled like everyone immediately volunteers. I mentioned that to Officer F as we followed the car through the intersection. He smiled and said it was technically a hazard but pointed to how the driver was acting. All the way thought the intersection the driver kept riding the breaks at odd moments and it wasn’t difficult to watch the extremely agitated body language between the driver and passenger.
This was the first actual “traffic stop” that Officer F had made. On came the lights and siren and instead of running the plates through his laptop he called in to Dispatch to verify that he was about to make a traffic stop, what his location was, and had them to run the plate for him. As he got out of the vehicle I watched him unsnap the safety strap on the gun holster and approach the car turned sideways, his hand on his weapon. For some reason, in that moment as I watched him head toward the driver side of the vehicle with very practiced carefulness, every bad shoot out on a Cop show that I had seen, came to mind. It was perfectly possible that my friend could get to that car window and be met with a gun. That was any officer. They had no idea what they faced every time they got out of their car and personally approached a vehicle.
The discussion only lasted a moment, and Officer F returned to the car to speak with Dispatch in private. The car and driver had no prior legal problems, except for the certain little container hanging off the driver’s keys, one that was synonymous with drug users in order to store their stash. Showing me the little screw top and the empty metal container it all seemed innocent enough, but I could tell he was sharing this knowledge with the driver as he returned the keys. Heading back down the road Officer F just shook his head and mumbled to himself about drug users and the frustration of people thinking that they could confuse or ignore an officer.
A tricked out little Honda that was packed with several people became another winner in the “no license” game. Officer F called the traffic stop in and hoped that the car would pull into the AMPM gas station on the corner. No such luck, they turned onto the road that was the dividing line between the two city districts. When our lights and siren came on, the car crawled its way to a “park-and- ride” three or more blocks down the road.
After chatting with the driver, Officer F instructed all involved to travel on foot for the rest of the night. It saved on paperwork. Right as he wondered aloud about the other district‘s Police responding, boom there was a squad car for the city in question. The guy looked less pleased that Officer F was making a stop on his turf. Did these guys really get pissed off about that sort of thing? The idea of there being some sort of gang war between districts seemed really silly. Yet, Officer F seemed almost sheepish as he explained his decision the other officer while a carload of people climbed out with groceries and cases of beer in hand. The other officer made a grumpy comment that nothing would stop those guys from returning to get the car, to which Officer F shrugged. For now they were walking.
Our next stop was a prime example Officer F’s gripe from earlier, people thinking they could confuse or outwit an officer. It was obvious that the driver was freaking out as we rolled to stop behind the vehicle at a traffic light. The driver was looking around frantically while making a half-assed attempt to get into the turn lane at the last minute, unsuccessfully. Indeed the information came back with the registered owner being unlicensed. On came the lights and siren and the guy’s driving got even worse. We followed the car through the intersection, again into the other district’s area, and the driver tried to turn across the median, which was torn up with construction. After that failed attempt he finally turned into a parking lot and gave up. Officer F had me move the spot light located above the passenger side-view mirror to shine directly between the two front seats of the now parked car, while he trained his spot light directly in the driver’s side window. He wanted to know any move this guy made.
Officer F left the windows rolled down, and even though it was cold I got listen to the exchange as the guy scrambled to explain why he was driving with no license and why he also had no proof of insurance. Returning, Officer F left the guy tearing his car apart while he started filling out the ticket. When I asked what the guy was doing, Officer F laughed. “He’s killing time pretending to look for something he knows isn’t there. See how he’s looking through the same pile over and over? He knows it’s not there.” When I looked down at the total for the ticket I nearly choked, it was over a thousand dollars!
“I would die if I got a ticket like this,” I told him wide eyed.
“You’re not the type of person to drive around without a license or proof of insurance.” I could only nod silently as he exited the car and headed back over to the frantic driver who hadn’t stopped flipping through the same pile of junk mail since Officer F had originally set him to the task. With a copy of the ticket in hand the guy was left without a car, jogging across the street to find a pay phone.
That is a HookerOff to the left side of the road a girl was talking on her cell phone and walking rather slowly along the road. She was simply dressed in a pair of tight jeans and a nice top, wearing only a short waist length jacket that she didn’t even have buttoned closed. “That is a hooker,” my friend said. I looked at her again as he flipped around in the intersection to pull off to her side of the road. He had to be joking I thought, but he mentioned that most hookers worked with their “john” via cell phone now a days. They still got picked up on street corners, but corners that were orchestrated by a pimp taking phone calls and giving directions for the meet-ups.
The young girl tried to pretend that she didn’t hear us as she chatted away on her cell phone, but Officer F just rolled down the passenger side window and shouted past me through the open window to get her attention. It seemed so strange that she walked up to the car looking more annoyed than anything else. We were apparently inconveniencing her. As he asked for her name and questioned her about her reasons for being out in the cold I started to feel a little exposed as she leaned in my window to hear Officer F better and answer his questions. Saying that she had been at a bar down the street, she had received a call from a friend and had agreed to meet at the McDonalds that was across the street behind where we were stopped.
Officer F changed the subject immediately launching into a lecture about his job as a police officer being on one that deals with safety issues. One of those safety issues was the problem of girls getting in and out of cars there on the highway. Watching her closely he pointedly asked if she was participating in an illegal activity such as that. She half laughed saying she hadn’t been in or out of any cars that night. Officer F kept with his same line of questioning and the girl’s attitude was beginning to be more anxious. Over and over she repeated that she had to be getting over to meet her friend.
When F asked her to dial up the person she was meeting so that he could talk to this friend, the girl was obviously freaked out. Then came the stream of excuses. “Well I donno if she’ll answer,” and “Her phone might be off.” Officer F just stuck his hand out and repeated his request. It didn’t take a total expert to see that the girl was in a panic as she grabbed up her phone and make a big show dialing. It rang and rang and rang. “She’s not answering.”
Officer F laughed and said, “That’s what I figured. Do you have your ID on you?” She heaved a huge sigh and handed over her driver’s license. “What have you been arrested for before?” That question shocked me the most. How could he just assume something like that and be so blatant as to ask? I would have been completely offended! But to my continued amazement, she sighed again, this time in a defeated manner, and rattled off a bunch of things she had been arrested for; some with convictions and some that involved charges that were dropped. What the hell? This was a different sort of life this girl lived. I was just a stupid and naïve adult that had no idea about the rest of society.
Officer F had nothing except the expert knowledge that even though he hadn’t caught her doing anything specific, she was indeed a prostitute. There was nothing he could do to keep her off the street or change her lifestyle ultimately. The best he could hope for was that she decided to go home for the night at least, but that wasn’t likely to happen either. Pulling back into traffic, I felt like my mind was blown. From the drug containers to the hookers I just felt like I wasn’t paying enough attention to what was going on around me. He just laughed when I mentioned my earlier thought of being offended at the question of my legal history. “That’s because you’re a good girl. You’d never give anyone a reason to ask that sort of question. The hardest part of this job is getting use to the fact that everyone is lying to you. Everyone has something to hide.” I also couldn’t help feeling like this was a tour of town from the dark side of life. All these places I’d been before, going about in my own little bubble and all this other stuff was probably happening around me. I didn’t know whether to feel blessed that I knew so little or if I should feel terribly sheltered. All I could do was watch from the passenger seat of a police car and wonder about the world.
Speeding Tickets and K-9 Assistance
Even with all the experiences I’d had so far, none of them had involved the cop stuff I had expected. There certainly wasn’t any of that fancy lingo that involved a whole lot of numbers when it came to communicating between officers or to Dispatch. They were pretty straightforward in everything they said and did. But where was the real cop stuff: Robberies and high speed chases, hell even a speeding ticket or two? Right as that crossed my mind a little black sports car went speeding by and Officer F picked up the pace to follow him. When our speedometer read eighty miles per hour Officer F notified Dispatch and the lights came on, but the car didn’t want to stop. The sports car slid off to the shoulder and kept rolling for almost another block. When it did completely halt, the driver didn’t turn his engine off. Because of the obvious lack of intent to stop and the deeply tinted windows, Officer F was very agitated. The law over how dark car windows could be tinted finally made sense, Officer F had no idea what he was facing until he reached that driver’s side window. He immediately got on his bullhorn and barked the order to “Turn off your engine!” The driver complied but in almost a lazy amount of time. Was the driver nuts, oblivious, or had something more to hide? Officer F was getting out of the car when another officer pulled behind, with his lights on as well. The two of them approached the car together and I felt better about the whole deal.
The windows were down again, and as I listened in to the conversation I was disappointed that the speeder was just some punk kid in a fancy car that didn’t speak a whole lot of English. The two of them walked slowly back to the patrol car laughing that this wasn’t the Autobahn but got quiet as another call came in for all officers in the area. A man reportedly armed and Samoan by race, was attempting to break into a house. Officer F and his companion looked at each other and mumbled something about “a big guy”. This changed everything for the current speeder. Leaning in the window Officer F said that this was the kid’s lucky day and raced back for one last talking to. It seemed really wrong that the driver was just getting a very hasty warning since Officer F was in a huge hurry to respond to the other call. The kid seemed like the type that needed a kick in the butt as it was. Even if it was tedious with the tickets and tail-lights being out, these people were the reason honest drivers have to get uninsured motorist coverage and why regular insurance is so damn high: People that don’t follow the rules and hurt everyone else in the process.
The u-turn that Officer F pulled across the busy highway was hair-raising but as we started weaving through traffic at top speed I was getting a little excited. This was the fast paced action I had been looking for. While we were flying up the road with lights and siren’s blaring, Officer F filled me in that we were off to a house that was near-by. The other officer was pretty even with us as we came to the intersection where we had to turn, the other officer merely pulled to a stop behind the car waiting to turn and seemed intent to wait on the light. “What are you doing?” Officer F asked out loud. “Your in a Police car damn it. Go through the light!” Pulling along side he gave his friend a headshake and moved straight into the intersection, pausing to make sure all directions saw him before turning the corner from the outside lane.
Once in the neighbor hoods he switched to a “black out” mode that turned everything off but the parking lights. Maneuvering behind the other Police cars already parked along the block, he turned the engine off and told me to sit tight. It took a while for my eyes to adjusted to the dim outdoor lighting from the houses and apartment complexes that surrounded the area. Picking up movement in the direction that Officer F had walked, I watched four different officers slink along the side of a garage area and head toward the side of the house that was apparently being broken into. All four officers had their weapons drawn and I felt so vulnerable sitting there in that Police car with the doors unlocked, not ten feet from where the officers were stalking this guy. I got to listen to the radio calls back and forth on the hand held walkie-talkie Officer F left turned up for me. The back-story given by Dispatch was of a domestic dispute where the wife had gone to her mother’s house refusing to talk to her husband. Feeling he had no choice but to break into the house, the mother-in-law had called the cops when she saw the husband trying to sneak in a back window.
The K-9 unit was requested when the perimeter of the house was found clear. The suspect had apparently fled on foot after not being able to get into the window he had tried for. Across the street the officers jogged, weapons still in hand along with flashlights. It was only moments later that the K-9 unit arrived and was added to the hunt. A beautiful German Shepard leapt from the back of a hatchback and pulled his human partner behind him on the leash. It was almost like watching a Benny Hill skit. Around and round I watched the bob of flashlights and stray officers running around the apartment complex across the street. Every once and a while the dog went by followed by several police behind him. I took that moment to count nine squad cars and the K-9 unit all parked along the street. That was a lot of manpower that had been re-routed for this situation. Was the rest of the city unprotected? Was everyone on the night shift here at this moment? Little did everyone else know that this was the time to be speeding or doing whatever else while nine Officers were tied up looking for a Samoan on the loose.
Officer F returned to the car with the news that the guy had been found crouching in some bushes and the dog had found him. As he was being lead back to the street I suddenly flashed back to the opening scene in the movie “The Green Mile” when the character John Coffey gets delivered to the jail. The paddy wagon was “riding on its axel” as one of the Jail officers had put it. This gentleman was huge, wearing just a pair of athletic shorts and flip-flops. In order to secure him it had taken two sets of metal handcuffs linked together in order to get his arms behind his back. As the other officers struggled with the question of who was taking the guy back to the station I met Officer S, the near and dear friend that I had heard Officer F talk about before. He was acting like a total goof ball and as more officers paraded by my open window, I couldn’t help feeling like a pretty girl the troops that hadn’t seen a woman in ages.
Like a regular comedian, Officer S started to crack jokes about the poor lost husband who stood in the freezing cold handcuffed and looking very ashamed. One by one the other officers were all refusing to have their suspension busted by being the one to transport him. Officer S on the other hand was all in favor of letting the suspect go. “Did you see the size of the window he was trying to crawl through? It was a tiny bathroom window. I think we should let him go because there was no way he could have possibly committed the crime!” This caused the whole crew to bust up laughing, but all I could see was the large man cringe and hang his head as far as he could. Finally an Officer owned up and transported the guy back to station in his vehicle but all I could see was a bunch of cops peering in my window and being total dorks.
Super TroopersAs we headed out to a domestic abuse call Officer F was giving Officer S a certain amount of time to get there or he’d lose, apparently Officer S was quite well known for his lack of directional sense. We still got there first, but Officer S was right behind us pulling ahead to park as if he had already been there. Where we had stopped was a cul-de-sac in a rather expensive looking neighbor hood. The two of them disappeared to a house farther down the way and out of my line of sight. So there I sat holding the second can of Monster Energy drink for the night and feeling really bored. I was also starting to feel tired. I didn’t want my energy level to drop or I’d never make it through the night, but it was kind of tough sitting in a nice warm car with nothing to really hold my attention.
After what left like forever the two came back up the road laughing and joking. Officer F got in the car and Officer S leaned in my window to share the story. The husband, wife, and her sister had all gotten drunk and the couple had started fighting. By the time F and S had gotten there, the husband had passed out and pissed on himself. The wife and sister found the whole situation hilarious and just needed help moving the big guy into the bathroom. That done, Officer S had tucked a small dog toy under the husband’s arm and made him look as if he was sucking his thumb. Taking a picture and promising the ladies a copy, the two had headed out with their job being done. It occurred to me that I wasn’t doing a ride along with Police officers; I was surrounded by two characters from the movie “Super Troopers”.
I did get a good laugh as Officer S got in his car and did loops in the cul-de-sac with his lights on like a total dork before he headed back out of the neighbor hood. Whether I agreed with his humor or not, the guy was a riot.
Little Voices
We parted ways with Officer S and drove to a different of the city where a mother had requested Police assistance with her daughter. The daughter had a history of mental illness and was asking to see a doctor at last. A second officer was already at the scene when we parked at the curb of the house, he had been waiting for back-up before entering the house. Officer F motioned for me to come with him inside but I wasn’t quite sure that it was smart for me to follow him into this one. He seemed confident enough about it and the other officer didn’t seem to care.
The three of us crowded into a small entryway that went either down a hallway of bedroom doors or out onto a large living room. The house was a mess with all sorts of junk everywhere and holes in the walls that looked like they had been punched in. The mother was what I would have called stereotypical white trash: greasy dishwater blonde, missing teeth, and very verbose. She explained that her daughter has been refusing help for a long time and they hadn’t known what to do about the voices she was hearing. Then out of the blue tonight she asked to go to the doctor. Nodding Officer F asked to go talk with the girl and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving the door ajar. I could only make out his soothing fatherly voice, but not the words that he was saying.
The other officer and I stood around waiting in the hallway not knowing what else to do. The mother apologized for the mess explaining that they were in the midst of moving. Pointing to the couches and the TV’s telling us to have a seat if we wanted and then asked permission to go into the other room to finish up the laundry she was working on. The other officer waved her off and we continued to stare about us without moving an inch. The bedroom door at the end of the hallway was missing a doorknob and the gapping hole where it should have been was covered in duct tape. The other officer and I seemed to notice that detail at the same time and shrugged at each other. One still had to wonder what had gone on in this house in the past. The officer turned toward a cabinet that was just inside the front door and made a move to open the top when he stopped himself. Looking at me, he smiled and put his hands back at his sides. “I only find things I don’t want to see when I look where I’m not supposed to.” I could only laugh quietly in response and focus my attention on my shoes. The notion was funny and sad all the same.
Officer F ushered us back outside saying the girl was changing her clothes and he was calling an ambulance to meet them outside. He went to share this news with the woman and I couldn’t help but feel like she had tried to be a good mother. Back outside we stood waiting for the ambulance to show and the two officers started to share stories back and forth to pass the time. The girl wandered out to the curb looking very far away and sullen. I wasn’t sure if I was able to talk to her or interact with her, but then I wasn’t sure I wanted to since I had no idea what sort of mental issues she was really having. She just stood alone in the cold patiently waiting. As the two cops shared work stories back and forth I couldn’t help feeling like they should be talking about gore and mayhem in front of the girl like she wasn’t even there. Since leaving the house, no one had spoken a word to her, just glanced every now and then to make sure she was still there.
At last the ambulance showed and the two females that jumped out of the cab were obviously good friends of Officer F’s. They were overjoyed to see him and immediately started flirting with him even as the girl was ushered around the back of the ambulance. The whole situation seemed terribly tacky, but I have to remember that when you deal with this sort of thing day in and day out, you get a little numb.
Miranda and Her RightsIt was almost three in the morning when Officer F got a call for assistance. Pulling in to the same Shell gas station that we seemed to keep coming back to, there were two other Police cars already and two vehicles that were a part of the traffic stop. One blond girl was handcuffed and sitting off to the side of the entrance to the convenience store and two more, a boy and a girl, were handcuffed off to the side of the building by the second car. The responding officer came to the window and filled Officer F in on the situation. The blond in the red car had been parked next the other green car here at the Shell station. After running the information the blond came back as being without a license and the two in the other car, one had a restraining order against the other. Why they were in the same car together was what the cops were currently trying to figure out.
The blond got placed in the back of our car and I was immediately unnerved. It was so odd having someone in handcuffs sitting right behind you, even with the mesh grating. Officer F took the report from the other officer and went about questioning her himself. Everything about her was desperate and I knew deep down this would be how I would act if I was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car; trying so hard to be calm and polite but in a full panic otherwise. The girl explained that she had just gotten out of jail thirty-six hours ago for drug possession and her mother had put a second mortgage on the house in order to get the money she needed. All she had intended to do that night was pick up her car, which had been at a friend’s house for the last year while she had been in jail, and get it to a safe place for the night. She knew she was driving without a license but she felt she’d had no choice. I could tell that Officer F was softening up. He warned her that she would be walking home if he could convince the other officer to let her go.
While Officer F got out of the car to discuss this possibility with the others, I felt weirdly abandoned with her being the only one left in the car. She was breathing heavily like she was trying to calm her self and she fidgeted about like someone with an adrenaline rush. Every little move she made, every little sound just put me farther into her shoes. That would be me in this same situation. I was scared at the idea of every facing such a situation, but at the same time it was like I was living it right along side her.
Returning to the car we sat and waited while Officer F continued talking to the girl. When the other officer leaned in the window I heard him say, “She’s not going anywhere. They found some stuff in her car.” Officer F heaved a huge sigh and dug in his chest pocket for a notebook. Flipping it over I saw something that looked like a checklist on the back. Calling the girl by name he let her know that he wouldn’t be able to let her go after all and proceeded to read the Miranda Rights off the back of the notepad he held in his hand. The girl immediately burst into agonized sobs as Officer F continued on without pause. Meanwhile I felt like I was outside myself watching the whole thing from far away. I had put myself in the same boat as this blond woman but as the real process of arresting someone happened before my eyes I couldn’t stay in that boat with her. It was too surreal. It was just like any TV show, but so horribly real. This young woman who was little younger than I, was going back to jail and I almost felt myself panic for her in sympathy.
Another report came back that there was evidence of identity thief and drugs found within her vehicle. Officer F became angry as he questioned her. Why did she have drugs in her car when she had just gotten out of jail for the same thing? Between sobs she could only blame the friend that had stored her car. She claimed to have no idea what was in the car, since she had just picked it up. Officer F reminded her that he had been the arresting officer a year ago when she had been caught with drugs the first time, and she had told the same stories then. At this she tired to change tracks all the while calling him “sir” and pleading with him that she was innocent. Fed up with her lying he got out of the car in a huff and walked away. She turned to me and asked if I knew a better way to get through to him. It was almost hilarious, because I felt like I was in the middle of a lover’s quarrel and she was looking to me for advice on how to better communicate with him. I was silent for a while not knowing if or what I should say to the girl. The bottom line was jail time and there was nothing she could do to avoid it. I just suggested that she calm down for a moment and take some deep breaths.
She took my advice but I could still hear her heart and mind racing. Her thoughts turned to regrets of the money her mother had given up the last time she went to jail. She wailed that her mother was going to hate her. On this I talked her through, and calmed her down again, but by the time Officer F came back to sit in the car she had dissolved in to one consistent and noisy sob. The three of them would be going to jail that night and other patrol cars were called in to transport each of them. We were in charge of waiting for the tow trucks that would be coming to get the vehicles for evidence.
Now we were both falling asleep as we waited for the tow trucks. I almost felt better knowing that even the Police had to wait a long time. At one point he gave up and had Dispatch call another company just at the first arrived. With that taken care of Officer F had promised to return to the station as well and help sort and bag up the evidence. I was almost looking forward to getting out of the car and being able to walk around for a bit.
So Close but No Cigar
The drive back to the station was a welcoming one but not a block away from the Shell station we encountered an obviously intoxicated driver. The vehicle crossed the centerline more than once during the time we were behind them and were traveling at an inconsistent speed. Officer F sighed, bemoaning the tons of paperwork that goes into dealing with a DUI and hoped that the guy would get himself under control and parked soon. But the car crossed the centerline again and Officer F couldn’t in good conscience let the driver stay on the road. On came the lights and the car pulled off into a parking lot of an apartment complex. Both the driver and passenger seemed oblivious that the cops were even behind them. The passenger was set to get out and saw us behind him with the lights on. That dawning look of “Oh shit” was terrible to watch.
Instructing the two guys to stay put, they tried to argue that they were home and that nothing bad had happened. Officer F considered that for a moment, but after running the driver’s ID, the sad news came back that he had a warrant out for a missed court date in reference to a prior DUI. No matter what the guy was going to jail. I on the other hand felt it made the whole situation even more ironic. You get trashed; you drive home and pull into the parking lot of your apartment thinking you’ve made it safely only to realize that the cops were right behind you in the process of pulling you over. So began the process of a FST or Field Sobriety Test. The passenger was released and brought Mom and Sister back to the parking lot to plead the case for their little boy. They were sent away as Officer F waited for a second officer to help him witness the FST. It was the shift’s Lieutenant that arrived in a huge SUV. He was a large man that looked rather pissed off about the fact that his laptop hadn’t been working at all that whole night. He also looked exactly like a main character from “Super Troopers”. The night was just getting weirder.
The FST was the usual tests of walking in a straight line, leaning back and touching your nose with your fingertips. All that sort of deal and just about every one of them he failed. Into the back of the car he went and the whole time Officer F and the Lt. were outside discussing things, he was silent. It was a hell of a change from the wailing female that had been back there not fifteen minutes ago.
The wait for another tow truck was a little more than Officer F could handle. Even with the Lt. parked side by side with our car, and his window rolled down to match our windows, we both ended up nodding off a little as we waited. I heard the Lt. calling Officer F’s name and F was still fast asleep, I tried to nudge my friend gently as to not bring attention to the fact that he was sleeping. This only proceeded in F flying out of the car with paperwork in hand thinking the tow truck had arrived. Now he was trying to play it off by stretching and chatting with the Lt. all the while giving me this conspiratorial look. I was trying not to laugh.
Just Breathe
At last the tow truck came and we continued on to the station with our intoxicated passenger. Entering from a different direction, the car pulled through a roll up door into a garage like holding area. Officer F went to lock up his weapon before retrieving the guy from the back seat. In through the doors that could only be opened with Officer F’s badge, we moved into a holding area that contained a large center table with computer and fingerprinting abilities. Huge windows looked out onto a sea of computers and Police Officers typing away on keyboards. The three holding areas were simply rooms with a metal frame bed and a door that was mostly window in order to see into the cell. Officer F was taking care of the paperwork and asking the guy some questions. The blonde that had been transported earlier sat two doors down still crying and wailing.
I felt terribly in the way at this moment. I was standing in the room watching, yet doing nothing. Paying close attention I handed over whatever Officer F might need; this was my only consolation for being there in the first place. I was rewarded with a smile and the comment that I should become his full time assistant. From the paperwork the guy was then moved back over to another room for the actual Breathalyzer Test. As the guy took a seat to wait for Officer F to calibrate the machine and get everything ready, he seemed to notice me for the first time. “Are you making me into an example or something?” I smiled sadly and shook my head. Officer F explained that I was just there to help out.
The guy ended up having a blood alcohol level that was way over the legal limit and that was saying something since he had stopped drinking several hours ago and the whole process of booking him hadn’t been fast either. Back to the holding cell he went. Even with his warrant for skipping a court date, Officer F gave him the benefit of the doubt. The guy was quiet, calm, and cooperative. Instead of more jail time, he issued another court appearance for this offence, but he would have to serve time for the warrant in a different city. That settled the guy was left to wait for a transport to the city where he would serve his jail time.
Paper Work and Pancakes
We moved into the computer area and Officer S showed off his handy work with the evidence that had been gathered out of the blonde’s car. I had never seen that much marijuana in my life. It was a brick the size of a textbook! They had also found a silver locking case that tested positive for methamphetamine residue. The rest was a long series of credit cards and various sundry bits of mail that had been stolen. A couple of the cops were saying that this might be the biggest identity theft bust that had ever happened. All of this had been flavor sealed together like device my grandmother use to use to keep stuff fresh in her kitchen. It was good to see it had more than one application. Keeping marshmallows and bricks of marijuana as fresh as the day you bought it.
It was now six in the morning and I was hyped up on my second wind, but Officer F was exhausted and winding down. All that was left was paper work and getting ready to go home. I followed about like a puppy for a while but in the end I became exhausted as well. The morning shift was having breakfast and I was invited to take part in the fresh off the grill pancakes that were being served in the main briefing room. By now I was ready to go home and I felt really awkward about eating with both crews. Sitting down next to Officer F I seemed to have ceased existing. I ate in silence and listened to the conversations around me. Done at last I finally grabbed up all my winter gear and headed for the door. It was tough not to give my friend a hug. The experience was more that I could ever really relate, even though I’ve tried, and to shake his hand seemed a little less than I wanted to convey. But so it was for a man in uniform.
As I changed for bed in the bright daylight that was eight o’clock in the morning I was asleep in no time. A twenty-five hour day had just gone by and what a day it had been.
