Raleigh 911!, part I

I don’t care what you may think you know about your neighborhood, you don’t know it as well as your local beat cop does. Period. The best way to learn about your neighborhood, then, is to have a cop be you tour guide. This is what I did Friday night when I rode along with my local police officer. As you’ll read below, the night didn’t disappoint.

I showed up at the district substation at 7:30 PM, called the cellphone of the sargent on duty, and was invited inside to wait while an officer came to pick me up. After handing in my waiver, I accompanied Chris, my officer, to our first call: a domestic disturbance.

Chris is originally from up north and has been on the force for six years. He’s a former Marine and Iraq War veteran who was part of the initial charge deep into Iraq. Though he calls himself a loner and likes working by himself, he was happy to have me there and offered to answer any questions I had. Since we were both veterans, we were soon comparing notes about our military experience.

“I once went over sixty days without a shower,” he said, referring to the early days of the Iraq war. I felt kind of foolish telling him how as a sailor I once had to go two weeks without a shower. Yeah, some hardship story. I began to think that anyone who spent significant time in Iraq had to consider police work a cakewalk in comparison.

The domestic call was pretty tame. Two other officers were there when we arrived. “You can get out for this one,” Officer Donnelly said. I’d heard domestic calls could get hairy quickly so I opted to remain in the car. Immediately I saw how a whole lot of nothing was going on and felt stupid for staying in the car, but I didn’t want to complicate things any more than they were so I stayed put.

We were soon on our way, with Chris shaking his head and muttering about what drugs do to one’s judgement.

Another call came in, this time a report of drug-related activity. We sped over to the area and found a crowd of people hanging out in a man’s front yard. The next thing I know, my passenger window is being rolled down.

“You staying out of trouble?” Chris shouted over to the man on the street, who was bent over the rear wheel of his car.

The man flashed a smile. “You know it. You know it,” the man replied.

“Good, you’d better be cool,” Chris yelled back as we sped off. After we drove off, I learned this man is a big-time drug dealer; one about to be put away for some real time for a change.

Chris then told me a story I’ve heard before from officers: how they’re out busting the bad guys only to have them serve little or no time for their crimes. Before you know it, these criminals are right back on the street. Only when the crooks get felony charges do they finally attract real time from judges. Its got to be frustrating for the cops to deal with this revolving door of crooks.

Chris then explained what his typical night is like. On weekend nights, activity goes down with the sun. It then picks up again when the clubs let out at 2 AM. Officers then deal with these drunken, rowdy (and often hungry) people until these people are off the streets. From 3 until 7 AM (the end of the shift) the officer’s biggest challenge is staying awake and engaged. Then many do it all over again. Chris said he had been working for 16 straight days, saving up comp time for an upcoming vacation.

Another call came in: kids making a ruckus in a neighborhood near the limits of the district. We rushed over to the neighborhood in question, didn’t see any kids, and returned back to our beat. Though we came from way across town, we made it well before the officer supposedly working the beat got there. This launched Chris into a diatribe about how officers on the force judge each other solely on how the job gets done. No one cares how nice you are, or outgoing, or fun to be around, he says, if you do not pull your weight.

So, why did Chris take the far away call? Software called Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) is used to automatically dispatch the nearest officer to a call. The problem is that sometimes the officer the software chooses really isn’t the closest. In those cases, officers can choose to override the system, so they frequently trade calls.

Around 8 PM we got out next call: a tree had fallen and was blocking a roadway. We rushed back up to our beat to a quiet street. A fire engine sat idle while two firefighters took stock of the situation. A large pine tree was blocking one lane of traffic, its branches brushing against some telephone pole guy wires. There was no fire and the tree wasn’t a hazard to drivers, so we waited a bit for the power company crew to get there and then we decided to stop by my house to visit the kids before they went to bed.

“You’re gonna have some explaining to do when you neighbors see you showing up in a police car,” Chris kidded as we turned onto our street. At the end of our driveway were Kelly, Hallie, and Travis; big grins on their faces. We spent the next few minutes showing the car to the kids, each getting a chance to turn the blue lights on. Hallie tood there beaming and Travis – a guy who talks all the time – was speechless. I’d never seen anything that would shut that boy up, but seeing that cop car did it.

After saying goodbye to the kids it was back on the road. In between calls, officers constantly run license plate checks of the cars they see. You never know when you’re going to get lucky at a traffic stop and find someone who’s wanted. We also passed suspicious cars and tested their reaction.

“You can tell a lot about what a driver’s up to by their reaction when a police car turns around on them,” Chris pointed out. The one car we tried it on was just pulling into a nearby parking lot when we tried it, so ours wasn’t a good test.

Next call sent is over to a shopping center on New Bern Avenue. A clothing store’s alarm was indicating a break-in attempt. Chris checked the doors of the well-lit store as I waited inside the car. Another officer joined us and they checked the rear doors. Another false alarm, so we stopped in a nearby parking lot to check messages.

For a few seconds, Chris studied a few photographs of suspects wanted for questioning.

“I bet you have a great memory for faces,” I said.

“Yeah, an excellent one,” said Chris. “I’ve pulled people over before and arrested them on the spot before I even knew their name, simply because I recognized them and knew they had warrants.”

As a geek, I watched as Chris tapped onto his patrol car’s laptop computer, a Dell running Windows XP and a suite of law enforcement software. I was stunned that none of the user interfaces were designed for car use. They all had the officer steering a mouse while he drove, and the text was incredibly small.

“I hate this computer, ” he confided. “If it only had a lighted keyboard…”

I thought how a MacBook might look on the console and laughed the image out of my mind. Like that would ever happen. Regardless, just a touchscreen PC would seem to be so much easier to use.

Chris decided to roll by some of the usual hot spots. We drove through darkened, dilapidated neighborhoods filled with aimlessly-wandering people. I kept avoiding eye contact with the people on the corners until I remembered I’m in a cop car! The bums on the street would avert their eyes whenever I looked at them. People seemed to “respect our authoritah,” as South Park’s Cartman would say.

Chris apologized for the slow night, so he redoubled his efforts at checking tags. Before long he had his prey: a car with tags that expired in March. As it pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex, the blue lights went on. Showtime.

“We usually give people a month after their tags expire, but this is a bit much,” Chris explained as he stepped out of the car. When he returned, he tapped in the license number into his computer and the citation filled in all the relevant information. Cool.

As he worked on the citation the people the driver was there to pick up wandered up to the car.

“This kind of stuff bothers the hell out of me,” he said before getting back out of the car. “Excuse me, ma’am. We’re trying to do some business here,” he said to a woman who quickly went back inside.

Chris asked for a box of printer paper that was in my door. He then fed a piece into the tiny thermal printer mounted on his dash. When I mentioned how slow it was, he laughed and told me it was one of the fast ones. It took about two minutes for the one-page citation to print. So the next time you get pulled and think the cop is simply stalling, it might be because he’s just waiting for his slow-ass printer to finish!

Yet another domestic call came in and we were rushing over to the house, this time followed by the other officer. I waited inside the car as the officers talked with the homeowner on the porch. I shook my head thinking about all the domestic violence that happens around town. If these are the calls that get reported, imagine how many occur that don’t get reported. How sad.

Just then Chris got word that a murder suspect has been located. A murder whut?, I thought to myself. I didn’t have time to ponder as Chris was already wheeling his car toward the area, with the other officer in tow.

“Catch a murder suspect, go home early!” Chris chuckled to himself as we raced through the streets.

Well, I wanted excitement. I was sure about to get it!

To be continued.