My ridealong with the Raleigh Police Department

In July of 2015, I decided it was time again to take another ridealong with the Raleigh Police Department (RPD). I last did a ridealong in 2007 and learned so much about my community that I never would have learned otherwise. It seemed like a refresher was in order, so I contacted my beat officer, Officer J.D. Boyd, and we set up a Friday night to make it happen.

There were a few key differences for this ridealong compared to the last time. First, I got door-to-door service from RPD whereas last time I had to start and end at the Southeast District station. I also was afforded the use of a bulletproof vest which was not offered last time. Finally, I am a greenway volunteer with RPD and so I am not your typical citizen. I’m sort of part of the department. This means I got to do more during this ridealong than my last ridealong, but more on that in a minute.

The ridealong experience started with some prep on my part. Knowing that I would likely be up most of the night, I took a two-hour nap after work. This got me rested and alert for the ridealong. Without the nap I would’ve been toast!

Officer Boyd rolled up to my home about 9 PM and handed me my bulletproof vest to put on. I took a cue from my last ridealong and dressed nicely with a blue button-down shirt and slacks. If I was going to be meeting the public and potentially be in their homes I wanted to look professional. The vest wasn’t all that bulky but I was aware how it might get heavy if I had to wear it all the time. Once suited up, I returned outside.

Boyd then gave me a quick rundown of safety stuff. He handed me a waiver to sign and then described where I could find his weapons and safety equipment, should I have to help him out. This was sobering! With a pic or two taken in front of his car, I waved goodbye to the family and we departed for our first call. It was a little disturbing how happy my son was to see his dad get whisked away in a police car!

Our first call was to see a local business owner who had a disagreement with his landlord. We politely listened to the businessman’s side of the story, then visited the landlord to hear his side. Both seemed to have legitimate grievances, so it became the usual he-said-she-said situation. Boyd was good in trying to hammer out a compromise to get everyone past the immediate crisis until the courts might offer more substantial relief. I imagine officers spend a lot of their time deciding whom to believe in the disputes to which they’re summoned.

Once back in the car, Boyd called into the dispatcher to get his next assignment. It’s the dispatcher’s job to assign priority to calls. Because that night there were a number of Southeast District officers out or on other assignments, there would soon be a long list of calls waiting for Boyd and his backup officer from the neighboring beat, Officer Brown.

We were called to the intersection of Capital Boulevard and Crabtree Boulevard. A kid was reported to be throwing rocks at passing cars. We found the kid sitting on top of the bus stop shelter, sneakers dangling over the side. Boyd politely asked him what he was doing and where he lived. It turns out his mother was staying at the nearby shelter and the kid had missed the bus that would’ve taken him up Capital to meet her. She soon drove up and scolded him for missing the bus and causing the cops to be called. The kid just seemed bored to me and I felt sorry for him. I was relieved that his mom seemed appropriately protective of him. I was also impressed with the respect Boyd showed both of them as he sorted things out. Mainly I was mad that the shitty Raleigh bus service had created this situation to begin with.

We then headed up Capital Boulevard and found a vehicle with a traffic violation. A dark black Chevy car had an expired temporary tag. On went the blue lights, just south of the Beltline.

“You can get out if you like,” Boyd said to me as he got out to speak with the driver. Indeed, throughout the ridealong I had full freedom to do and see what I wanted. I stepped out of the car and kept well away from the passing traffic.

An officer’s car is his or her office and workspace. It’s important that there’s enough room to work. Like many officers, Boyd is a big guy. He also wears a duty belt weighing over 20 pounds and a bulletproof vest as well. Watching him constantly pull himself out of his seat by the steering wheel made me wonder how anyone’s back could take this kind of abuse day in and day out. It is no wonder that officers prefer driving SUVs rather than the venerable Crown Vics most drive – it’s much easier to get in and out of an SUV. And no cop likes driving a Chevy Impala – way too cramped!

Being loaded down with a bulletproof vest and 20-pound belt can quickly make one sweaty (not to mention the adrenaline that comes with doing the job). Officers love their air-conditioning but the standard air vents don’t do a good enough job keeping them cool (especially if the vents are blocked by equipment as they so frequently are in cop cars). One of the most useful tools in Boyd’s car is a flexible hose known as “body armor air conditioning.” One end of this hose clamps over the dashboard air vent and the other feeds cool air underneath his vest. On the hot July night of my ridealong, Boyd had this hose clipped to his vest anytime he was in the car. I imagine this simple invention has done a lot to make patrolling more bearable.

Boyd smelled marijuana on the driver when he asked for his driver’s license and registration. Boyd searched the vehicle once Brown arrived to watch the driver. He found a small amount of weed in a bag and confiscated it. Otherwise the car was immaculate. The driver said he had just bought it and it appeared to be true as there wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere on it. Its cleanliness put my car to shame. We marveled at its cleanliness was but there appeared to be no stash of drugs or reason to detain him any longer. He sent the driver on his way with a citation for the weed and cleared the call.

“Did you see that culvert?” he grinned when we were back in the car.

I sure had. Lurking right outside our police car was a 3-foot-deep hole hidden in the tall grass. One wrong step would’ve meant a broken leg. It was a reminder that bad guys aren’t the only danger that officers face during every shift.

It was time to take a short break and get some coffee. Boyd took us over to a Starbucks on New Bern Avenue where we grabbed two cups to go. When someone’s doing night shift work, coffee is a must. I opted for decaf since I wanted to sleep whenever it was that I got home.

We then were called to a domestic disturbance on Heck Street. Domestic disturbances are some of the most unpredictable calls an officer can answer. You never know what might be happening. Boyd described one call where the couple was arguing over who got to use the microwave oven. At least they weren’t hurting each other, I thought. It’s not always that way, though.

Soon we arrived at Heck Street. I was familiar with Heck Street as I often drive by it on the way to my kids’ school. At night it was quite, shall we say, lively. A woman had reported being assaulted by a man. When we rolled up there were a few small groups of people hanging around. Some of them became chatty with us when we arrived. Others quickly scattered.

Out in the shadows right off the street near the alleyway, a skinny man lazily rode his bike in circles. A skinny woman, obviously high on something, chatted with Boyd and then turned her attention to me.

“What are you? DT?” she cooed, glassy eyes looking me up and down. “Are you DT? Detective? Cadet?”

“No, ma’am, I’m just a volunteer.” I answered. While I was wearing my RPD identification, I made it clear to anyone who asked that I was not a police officer.

“Well then,” she answered, her eyes widening and a smile crossing her face. “You’d better watch out,” she whispered in a not-so-friendly way. “This is a rough neighborhood.”

“Yes, I know the neighborhood,” I shrugged, completely unfazed by her attempt to spook me. “It’s my neighborhood, too.”

I wasn’t just bluffing. I consider myself pretty street smart. As a sailor I had once wandered some tough streets. Later I had lived near some of Raleigh’s toughest neighborhoods. I’m pretty good at sizing up situations and I felt no fear at all. Realizing she had left me unimpressed, she wandered back into the shadows.

Meanwhile, Boyd was walking down the street, asking passers by who might have called. A 30-ish woman, visibly pregnant and drunk, reluctantly approached after others prodded her. She told of the man who allegedly assaulted her and Boyd found him a few doors down, sitting on the front steps. As Boyd approached, he thought he saw the man toss something onto the ground.

Boyd called me over. This was one time during the ridealong I felt I was being summoned for my safety. Boyd talked with the man, who denied closing the door on the woman. Boyd asked the man what it was that he had thrown down but the man denied doing it. When Brown arrived to watch the man, Boyd and I searched around the ground to see if we could find what he had discarded. We turned nothing up.

Now away from the man, the woman gave a sob story that now she was “in for it” as the man knew she had called the cops. She begged Boyd to find her a place to stay that night. Boyd asked her why she thought the man deserved arrest and she couldn’t come up with anything. I think Boyd really wanted to help her out but to me there seemed to be reasons to be skeptical of her claims. With everything seemingly settled for the time being (or, most probably what happens in these situations, the cops have no idea which side is telling the truth), we cleared the call and moved on.

The next call came in for a trespasser near Garner Road, so we headed that way via the Beltline. We hadn’t driven a half-mile before Boyd flipped on his blue lights and it took me a moment to realize why. Debris was scattered all through the middle lane of I-440. As traffic slowed down around us, he hopped out of the car and began winging the twisted remains of an aluminum ladder off to the edge of the highway. In a few minutes he had cleared the roadway and we proceeded on. This hadn’t been a call he was answering, he took the initiative to do this himself. Also once again, bad guys weren’t the only danger.

We got to Garner Road and there was no sign of the trespasser. That call was cleared and then on to the next one. We drove to an apartment complex in Southeast Raleigh and walked up some stairs. A report had come in that someone was selling drugs at the complex. We looked around but didn’t see anything. Two men, apparently residents, were quietly hanging out in one stairwell, drinking. Boyd said hello to them and they returned the greeting. I believe he suggested they move inside and they did. There wasn’t much else to do here so we cleared and continued on.

On the way to the next call, we talked about music. Boyd is a big fan of 90s rock, so we talked about the shows each of us had seen. It turns out we like the same kind of music.

The night progressed and the calls were leading mostly nowhere. When we arrived at the reported crime there was usually nothing going on. I don’t know if we were just late getting there or if the calls had bad information. As a result, we were doing a lot of running around with very little effect.

Passing the Lane Street Mini Park, we came upon an older man seated on the picnic table and holding a bottle in a brown bag, talking to himself. Trespassing. This time I remained in the car as Boyd approached the man. This guy was high as a kite, apparently, as he began to carry on some wacky conversation regarding Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth. I’m not sure what planet this guy was on but it must have been a happy one. It was hard not to laugh. Boyd politely sent him on his way and grinned at me, shaking his head.

Somewhere along the way we passed the pregnant woman we had seen earlier. She was walking along the street with the man she had earlier accused of assaulting her. They seemed to be getting along fine. I shook my head.

We got a call to the Raleigh North apartments. This is one of the most dangerous complexes in the neighborhood. The apartments’ security staff had seen a man hanging around who had been earlier trespassed from the property and alerted RPD. The officers and I drove in and approached the apartment where this guy was last seen.

A woman was talking to other women at the doorstep while a toddler played at her feet. When Boyd asked if the man was home she said he wasn’t. As Boyd approached he had seen them acting suspiciously. They swore up and down that the man in question wasn’t inside. Boyd paused a moment to say hello to the toddler before walking away. He said later that he thought that the man was inside all along.

Meanwhile, Brown had pulled over a white sedan that had turned into the apartment parking lot without its lights on. A young man dressed up for clubbing was in the car. Upon running the registration, the officer learned it was in another person’s name, the driver’s girlfriend. The other officer searched the car while Boyd questioned the driver. The driver said a BB gun was in the glove compartment. I began to think that things could get crazy very quickly but the driver stayed calm during the search and Boyd never took his eyes off him. Brown ticketed the driver for an expired registration but let the other violations go, saying he had too much other stuff to do that night. The driver was soon on his way and so were we.

We then took the opportunity to drive through my neighborhood to check on things. Boyd flipped on the side lights on his light bar to illuminate the yards of the homes we drove by, looking for any prowlers that might be lurking. As we approached Lions Park, we came across a white Cadillac parked there – well after 11 PM and most certainly trespassing. As a neighbor, I’ve never been happy with people trespassing in this park at night.

Boyd flipped on the blue lights and pulled up behind the car. A couple was in the front seat, apparently planning to get intimate. Boyd ran the plates and up popped a warning on his computer that the male owner has a history of being violently confrontational. A woman was in the driver’s seat and the owner in the passenger seat. Neither was thrilled to be disturbed and the woman threatened to file a complaint. Even so, Boyd was respectful to them and there was no confrontation. With the man’s history, I watched the whole interaction closely. Boyd gave the woman the trespassing ticket, walked back to the car, and then somewhat blithely informed his supervisor that a complaint might be on the way (a completely bogus one, in my opinion). Once they had departed we also went on our way. I never heard whether the woman had actually filed the complaint or not. I imagine many people, caught in the wrong, will lash out simply to spite the officers who caught them.

Boyd was determined to show me some real police work, so we started working traffic along New Bern Avenue. We saw a white work pickup truck pass in front of us with one headlight out. Boyd pulled it over to discover the driver was Latino and didn’t speak a lick of English. Boyd did the best he could to translate as he wrote him a ticket and we moved on. Still no real excitement.

It was close to 2 AM and the drunks would soon be hitting the road in droves. We parked along Capital Boulevard near the Capital Inn and watched cars leaving downtown. Any signs of drunkenness – lane-weaving, driving with the headlights off – and we would pull them over.

We followed one SUV up Capital Boulevard that was having trouble staying in its lane. Less than five seconds after Boyd stopped him he know the driver hadn’t been drinking. He politely and respectfully sent him on his way and we returned to our spot.

It was time to get more creative. Brown ran radar in front of the Public Storage building along Capital while we waited a quarter-mile down the road. It wasn’t long before a white compact car came flying by doing 61 MPH in a 45 MPH zone. We got the word and soon were zooming up behind it.

This is where my being an RPD volunteer paid off. Normal citizens on a ridealong are not permitted to ride in a high-speed chase; the cops have to drop them off on the side of the road. As a volunteer, though, I am exempt from this rule. Thus, when Boyd stomped on the pedal to catch up with our suspected drunk driver, I got a special treat. It can be kind of fun legally going twice the speed limit. And a little bit unnerving, too!

We caught up with the driver about a half mile later and pulled him over. It was an Hispanic male in his late 20s, reeking of alcohol. Brown soon arrived and Boyd began administering the sobriety checks on the driver. Reciting the alphabet backwards, walking a straight line, the man was tested and he failed every test. Boyd snapped the handcuffs on him, put him in the back of our car, and moved his car to a nearby side street.

A DUI arrest. Finally we were going downtown!

Boyd gave me a choice now of sticking around for the DUI processing or heading home. If I stayed, it would be a long wait while the driver was processed. While I could’ve gone to bed at this point, I had never seen what happens when someone is booked into jail so I opted to stick around. After all, this was the first real action of the whole evening. What, quit now? Now that things were getting interesting?

We drove the suspect to the jail on Hammond Road in Garner, entering the protected garage. There were electric doors and cameras. There were a lot of suspects being booked in the brightly-lit room. Officers and guards milled about. I was glad my police ID hung from my neck but I still stuck close to Boyd.

There was a lot of paperwork to be filled out. Officers hate how much paperwork has to be filled out. Boyd encouraged me to hang out in the DUI processing room while he filled out the multiple forms needed for processing a DUI arrest.

Upon his initial search, a copper penny was found in the driver’s mouth. Apparently this was an effort to throw off the Breathalyzer test.

The DUI processing room had four Breathalyzer stations for testing suspected drunk drivers. Each machine is very sensitive and needed calibration and some time to reset between uses. Our suspect settled onto a stool while the machines were being readied. He had apparently having played this game before, as he invoked his legal right to have a witness of his choice present for the test. Tack on another 45 minutes as we waited for his friend to arrive.

Finally his witness friend arrived. When it was the driver’s turn to blow he burped into the machine, invalidating the test and adding another 20-30 minutes before he could try again. I rolled my eyes and tried to get a signal on my phone through the thick walls of the jail. It would certainly be a long night.

Our driver dragged out the inevitable but he could not avoid it. He blew into the machine one more time and this time registered 0.14 Blood Alcohol Content (BAC). Legally drunk, well above .08! This guy would spend the night in jail.

Boyd and Brown then appeared before a magistrate and offered sworn testimony about the case. The magistrate set bail and sent them on their way. Just another drunk driving case. Far too routine, it seemed.

There was little else for me to see. Boyd would finish the paperwork and Brown would drop me off at home. I got there about 5 AM, handed over my vest, thanked him, and went to bed. It was a long but fun night!

So, what did this ridealong show me? Once again, I got a boots-on-the-ground look at the community in which I live. I saw how respectfully Officer Boyd treated the people he interacted with – he’s not a guy who kicks people when they’re down. I also saw how mundane police work can be. And you know what? It might not have made for the most exciting ridealong but it’s a pretty good testament to my neighborhood that Officer Boyd had to work so hard to show me any crime.

If you’d like to do a ridealong with your local police department, you’ll have to schedule it in advance. Raleigh Police Department will need to run a background to check you for convictions or warrants. I can tell you it’s worth it, though. I believe everyone should witness the kind of work these men and women do each day and night. Police work is hard work. It takes a special person to be trusted with so much power and responsibility. We are fortunate that good people like Officer Boyd and others continue to walk the beat to keep our community safe.