My Police Ride-Along (Brandon's second-ever blog entry!)

On Tuesday evening, 12/30, I went on a ride-a-long with my brother-in-law, Mike.
Man, it was fun….("fun" probably not the word that the criminals want to hear, so we will just say exciting.)

Our first call was a theft where a teenage boy was on his way to a skate park and did not even make it out of his cul-de-sac when a car with two young adults pulled up and intimidated the boy into giving them his cell phone. Fortunately for the boy, he was unharmed and able to cancel the service right away when he got home. The best part of that stop was that the other officer that had gotten there before us was asking the boy the color of the car and all the boy could say was “it was a color” over and over again. The boy’s dad said that he had told him that it was red, but the boy corrected him and said that he had said that it was rustic. So the officer asked him if he meant primer grey and the boy just looked dumbfounded and said “no, it was….rustic looking”. The officer asked him again what color it was and then Mike looks at the boy and says “obviously it wasn’t clear!” That was a good laugh and after all that the other officer then asked the boy if the car look unfinished and in need of a paint job, the boy answered “yes” and the officer goes “okay then, primer grey.” Needless to say we had a good laugh about it after we went outside back to the patrol car.





Then the next call which I believe was a DV (domestic violence) involved a guy who was supposedly throwing his girlfriend around near some retail stores. When we got there the couple were just standing in the parking lot kissing and being all ♥lovie dovie♥. Mike approached them and asked what was going on and they said “that’s just the way we are, we’re in love”. Since there was no marks on the girl, Mike just let them go.





The next call we went to was another DV. This involved a 19 year old who apparently got into an argument with his girlfriend over some contacts in his cell phone. The girlfriend called the police from her boyfriend’s house, but the boyfriend fled to another family member’s house. One officer went to the house where the girlfriend was at and we went to the house where the boyfriend had gone to. Mike got to handle this one and I'd say he handled it pretty well. He had the boyfriend sit on the couch and he questioned him about the incident; he claimed that she was scratching his face and arms with her nails and he proceeded to push her away and then left the house to be the “bigger man.” Mike got on the phone with the officer at the other location and found out the girl had red marks on her face and some swelling (it turned out according to her that he slapped her 5 times). Mike then came back into the room and asked the guy if he hit her open or closed-fisted, after asking him several times he admitted to hitting her opened-fisted, which by the way, either answer would admit guilt. So he was arrested and Mike and I escorted him down to the jail were his bond was $2000. (I’m sure the guy’s father will be overjoyed when he hears how much the bond is. Maybe that will end up being another call for the police!)





Then we sprinted out of the jail and headed to a call were they had spotted a suspect from an armed robbery from the night before and we just sat around with spotlights on trying to catch the person(s) involved. But that did not pan out and the Sergeant called it off.





We then had another DV but by the time we got there the guy had already left. The lady was really just scared because he pushed her and tried to pull the phone out of the wall so she would not call the cops. The funny (or not-so-funny) thing about this call was that two of the veteran officers knew the guy's name just by looking at the address!





The next call was the one that got the adrenaline going. We went to help out with a call from Wal-Mart were some kids had been in the store knocking products off the shelf and verbally abusing the workers and customers. I guess when police showed up they ran through a Home Depot parking lot and started jumping fences in the neighborhood behind the store. By the time we got to the neighborhood we positioned ourselves on one of the inlet streets while some of the other officers went on foot to find the suspects. Mike and I all of a sudden looked up and a Cadillac with three kids was coming out from one of the side streets and then three kids came running out to the car and at that time we hear over the radio “Nincehelser they’re coming your way!” Mike jumped on the accelerator and pulled right in front of the path of the car and jumped out with his gun drawn and previous to Mike jumping out two other officers had already ran up to the car with their guns drawn. Man, talk about heart pounding! I kept envisioning one of the kids in the car doing something stupid and pulling out a gun. With all the excitement only one of the kids got arrested and taken in. One of the officers that was at Wal-mart brought the prevention loss workers to the scene to identify the suspect(s) and apparently only one of the three who was actually running did anything wrong. (In case you’re counting there were 6 kids laying on the ground with handcuffs on.)






But, that was not the last exciting stop of our night. We went to a couple other calls and stopped for a quick bite to eat. The second to last call of the night started out with a lady calling to complain about her boyfriend. When we arrived at the scene several other officers were already there. We walked into the house and four people were sitting on the floor with handcuffs on, it turned out that they were growing marijuana (a pretty sad batch of plants if I do say so. I think the biggest one was less than 2 inches tall.)
This lady called because her and her boyfriend were arguing and she must have been scared or something. When the officers arrived, they spotted a small brick of weed on the floor (after looking around the house there was a small brick in each person’s room almost like it was their weekly allowance). So talk about dumb ~ you call the police and end up getting arrested over your own illegal activities!





After that call, the last one was a false burglary where kids were just coming home and entering through their basement. After that, Mike took me home since we were just around the corner from my house.


Mike said that the night was a good one for me to have come along because it is usually not this exciting all in one night. I have to say that I had an exciting night and definitely would love the opportunity to do it again and would suggest to anyone to give it a try sometime. Mike will be happy to take you! I was amazed that they let me get out and be involved with what they were doing. I went into people’s houses unquestioned by the people that live there and the only time they gave me any directions was when we went into the drug house, not to touch or talk to any of the suspects. I did stay in the car when they had their guns drawn on the kids. (Probably a good idea!) After seeing some of these houses I will never feel like my house is dirty. I can’t even imagine how some of this people would feel comfortable living the way they do. My only regret was not taking pictures…Oh well, maybe next time….

Oh yeah…Thanks Officer Nincehelser! You’re doing a great job and we are very lucky to have you and your colleagues out there protecting us!