Went to meet with my buddy Eric for a fun night on the town patrolling and fighting bad guys. My wife and I arrived Saturday afternoon and met Eric and his wife for dinner at the local O'Charleys. We left the restaurant at 1830 hours, and went back to the motel. Eric picked me up from the motel at 1930, our shift began at 2000 and went until 0600. We went to headquarters for a brief "roll call" where the three 3rd shift officers coming on duty meet and chat for a few minutes. This is my first ever ride on 3rd shift, or with a small agency. Things here are much more laid back than I'm used to seeing in larger departments. We hit the streets and got our first call outside a bar on a rural road for a minor no injury accident. We arrived on scene and took some quick notes for a report. Car A was coming around a sharp curve and struck car B backing out of the bar,nothing to major. However car A left their car in the middle of the road right after the blind curve, which I thought was maybe not the best idea. We were off and running, this is a county police agency which is something very unique to me, it has some larger cities on the north side of the county which are suburbs of a major city, that have their own police departments, and several small towns in the south side of the county that have no police, their is also no Sheriff patrol in this county so the county police are responsible for these areas, as well as the major highways and interstates that run through the county because the state police do not patrol much, if any, in this county as well.
So our role here is like sheriff, police and highway patrol all at the same time, it was very unique and fun. Unlike all my other ride alongs where I have been with a patrol car assigned to a sector of maybe one mile, responding to calls here sometimes means driving up to 30 miles. We started out by doing a few business checks, an average of ten per night is required by the department, and an average of 3 traffic stops per night is also required. There is a ticket quota here as well, but it does not have to be citations, written warnings can also be given to fulfill the quota.
We made a few traffic stops, one was some teenage kids we followed who were riding the fog line, when asked why, the 16 year old driver responded "what is a fog line?" so we just said nevermind and sent them on their way with a warning. We then responded with other officers to a call from a small town buried deep in the hills where a male driver was apparently DUI and hit several cars on the street then fled on foot abandoning his car in the middle of the street. This is where I learned what it's like to respond quickly to a call using rural narrow windy backroads. Let's just say I was quite queezy by the time we arrived on scene. lol I was a little nervous, but I had faith in Eric that he knew what the hell he was doing and was not going to get us killed! His wife tried to warn me prior to riding, but I didn't take it seriously, now I know what she means.
Anyhow when we arrived on scene the witnesses said he ran towards his parents house the next block over, which is where the car was registered. The parents said their son was not at the house and gave consent to have the house searched, he was not there. He had been there briefly but took off again, assuming the police were coming and knowing that he had just wrecked his fathers car. We went to a bonfire across the street and he was not there either,though the neighbors said if he did show up they would gladly turn him over to us, didn't seem to be very big fans of this guy. One guy at the fire said he had dated his daughter, so he was more than happy to help us get him. We then left that scene and went back on patrol.
We went back to the north part of the county and made a few more traffic stops along the interstate and highways. One for speeding, we released the driver with a warning. We made a couple more stops for cars that were weaving, but was not able to turn up a DUI,all the drivers were released with warnings. We stopped another woman on a back road for failure to dim bright lights, she said she forgot she had them on and as soon as she saw us turn around she realized what she had done, she was released with a warning. We responded to an inactive domestic violence call back in the rural part of the county, woman complained her boyfriend struck her then left. We showed up and took the initial report then went to an address in a city within the county where she said her boyfriend lived. The address turned out to be fake,and we were not able to locate any vehicles matching the description of his within the area, so we went back on patrol.
Got another call from a rural residence of a loud party in the area, woman was not able to identify exactly where it was coming from but said she could hear it from her residence. We responded with another officer and searched the area but could not hear anything,on call back the woman advised the noise had ceased, so we then went back in service and headed to the gas station to fill up the cruiser along with the other officer. Eric and the other officer had just gotten the nozzles in their fuel tanks and I was chatting with the other officer, I said it's kind of quiet out here tonight, and just as I said that we heard a loud bang and tires squealing. He said well it looks like you may have just got something! Two males were in an old pickup and the driver had driven over the curb trying to get into the gas station. As they exited the pickup and started to walk(or rather stumble) into the store Eric and the other officer ran over and shouted at the man to come talk to them. The passenger of the vehicle started to get up in Eric's business as he was trying to talk to the driver, but a quick threat of get over there and be quiet or you're going to jail calmed him down and he stayed out of the way. Driver was given the standard field sobriety test between the two cruisers, and he didn't do to well. The passenger was given a breathalyzer test and was found legal to drive, he was given permission by the driver to assume control of the pickup and the pocket knife he had been carrying.
We took the man back to headquarters for a breathalyzer test where he was advised his rights under state law regarding the breathalyzer test. He refused to take the test, making the charge an aggravated DUI.(Double fine and jail sentence for refusal) We attempted to call an attorney to come down to the station at his request, but the attorney didn't answer his business phone and the Defendant refused to contact him at his home number because he didn't want to wake him. He was read his Miranda rights at that time, in which he said he didn't like the way they were worded he wanted "complete sentences."
Now he wanted to get into a grammar argument,however the rights were read to him directly the way they are presented on the card,which is all that has to be done. The Defendant became verbally abusive to both Eric and I, and we took him to the jail after his refusal. When we pulled in the jailer just looked at us like should've known it was you! lol Eric is a very proactive officer and makes alot of arrests, he jokes with the woman at the jail every time he brings someone in he tells her "I'll be back in 15 with another one!" She just says shut up and get out of here. lol
We headed back out on patrol before long we were blinded by a driver going the other direction who did not dim his headlights, we did a quick flip around and pulled him over. Upon approaching the vehicle Eric noticed immediately the smell of marijuana and we called for cover, the other two officers showed up and the car was searched and the marijuana was found along with a fake drivers license the kid was using probably to get into bars, it was made out of cardboard though and was not very convincing. So we bagged another one and headed back to the jail. They didn't seem surpised to see us back again, after all ,we did tell them we would be back! This time there was a combative man who had been restrained in a special chair raising a fit in the booking area. He was cursing and screaming for attention. At one point he yelled "HEY CUTIE!" Eric says "He's talking to you.." (though I presume he was refering to the female Deputy)so I looked at him and he said "COME OVER HERE AND SUCK MY DICK!" But I just politely informed the gentleman I was not going to be able to do that because I was married, then went back to ignoring him again.We had about an hour and a half left on shift and headed back out, found a couple hanging out in a pickup at a bar and we contacted them to see what was going on, but it was nothing so we just informed them to get going since the driver was sober. We came upon another occupied vehicle in the parking lot of a famous bar that is supposedly haunted, incidentally the crew from ghost hunters was in town doing an investigation of an allegedly haunted bar, but it wasn't this one.Another officer made the comment on the 800mhz radio system that all the police agencies in the county can use to talk to each other,kind of like a high powered CB radio, that he was going to go by and "rattle some windows" lol He was joking of course,but it was pretty funny.
Long story short their was a semi tractor who had permission to park on the lot who was waiting for the last thing to straggle out of the bar and he was having sex with them. The city police also showed up because they had already informed the women to get moving a few minutes prior to us showing up. I had been in the car and Eric told me it was ok to step out, so I did and then one of the city officers came back over and I apparently caught him off guard, he was like "WHO IS HE! WHERE DID HE COME FROM?!?" Eric advised him I was a rider and he was like "Oh ok, well I guess your ok then!" lol It was pretty funny though, he thought people were just coming out of the woods or something. He then described the woman who was with the trucker as a "one caser, maybe two with a paper bag." LMAO That was one of the funniest things I think I've ever heard, I think I'll adopt that line for future use. That was pretty much the end of the night, a quick stop to the white castle and Eric took me back to my motel at 0600. He stayed on until 1000 to cover some over time and fill out the reports from the nights work.
All together it was one of the most exciting rides I've ever been on. It was very exciting to be able to take on so many roles of police agencies all in one place. I really like this agency and the fact that they provide paid training,something you don't find very much in Ohio may make it my future home. I hope to do more exciting rides here in the future! Also want to add something very cool is all the officer's get to wear black BDU uniforms after training, trainees and FTO's who have a trainee have to wear the blues, but after that you get to wear the BDU's which are much more comfortable and command a more authoritative message to would be attackers then regular police uniforms. One thing that did suck is the power inverter that runs the laptop gave up the ghost,so we lost the laptop after the battery died and we had to go "old school" using pen and paper,maps, and the 'ol trusty "blue book" of statute codes.
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