Police Ride-Along

I went on a police ride-along the other night. It. Was. Awesome. !

I got assigned to a lady police officer (as most of you know, I am also a lady!), and she was Jewish (what are the odds! I am also a police officer! I mean, Jewish!), annnnd she was hilarious. We first responded to a supermarket shoplifting case which turned out to be a FELONY because the person had prescription pills they had bought off the street (obviously with no prescription). According to the supermarket security, a lot of drug users steal tin foil so they can use it to free base (if you don't know what this means, look it up on urban dictionary just like I had to). Oh alright, I'll help. Apparently certain pills, such as oxycontin, are abused by rolling them around on heated tin foil and inhaling the fumes.

Oh no- I just said how to use a drug illegally! Aren't I worried about the info reaching the kids? I would say no, because I'm sure you could get much better and more detailed instructions just from paying attention in D.A.R.E class. Do they even have those anymore?!?

Point being: drugs are bad. Especially prescription drugs that are bought off the street. Why? (A) Drug dealers DON'T CARE about their clients. How do you know this for sure? Because they are SELLING you things to HARM YOURSELF with. Okay. (B) You can't trust a drug dealer [please refer to (A)], so how do you know for sure they are selling you what you are paying for? There are tons of pills that look and taste about the same. I've actually seen a couple of times where people come to the ER after collapsing, and are found to have mysteriously low blood sugar even though they have no history of diabetes. When they are revived, the only recent ingestion they report is "street valium." WTF does that mean? There is a diabetes medication similar in size/color to valium. The HUGE DIFFERENCE is that if you abuse the diabetes medications, it will give you prolonged hypoglycemia (drop your blood sugar dangerously low), quite the opposite of a high (pun intended). Terrible joke. But seriously kids, don't do drugs.

Back to my story. So we arrest the shoplifter and take him to jail (and when I say "we" I mean the police officer did all of this and I was following her around silently thinking the whole time "No way! No waaaaay! I'm in a jail! A jail!!"). I felt bad for the shoplifter and for everyone else there. Jail is a scary place. The one we went to was like a big concrete cave full of all kinds of people you don't want to be locked in a concrete cave with.

Other adventures that night included trolling around midtown for a drug dealer's car, driving through a residential neighborhood searching for a "suspicious" looking man, helping relocate a mentally ill woman who was evicted and directing her to resources for housing and social services, and driving along the light rail tracks in pursuit of a suspect. Who was riding the light rail, while drinking stolen alcohol.

And he got away.

Anyways, I learned that police (1) have to be incredible multi-taskers, (2) are well versed in community resources, and (3) put up with a lot of crap.

(1) Can you carry on a text message conversation with two friends, look somebody up on facebook, google a number, and do your job on your touchscreen laptop, all simultaneously, while driving? This is essentially what the police on patrol do every day. They have computer screens and keyboards in the car, which they use to send messages to headquarters or other patrol cars, use a program for running license plates, a database for looking people up, and they are continually getting a stream of new "calls" in to respond to (such as burglaries, disturbance of the peace, collisions, etc). They also have radios they need to be paying attention to at all times, and staying mindful of where their colleagues are so that if one of them started yelling for help they know where to go immediately instead of wasting time trying to figure out where that person is. Did I mention that this is all done while driving?

(2) Patrol officers need to be able to know their neighborhoods well not just for navigation, but also for using community resources effectively. The officer that I rode along with had to help an evicted woman find a motel for the night, and because she also knew where the local shelters were, she was able to pick the least expensive motel that was also within walking distance of the nearest shelters. Being able to see how community assets interface (in this case, the police officer referring a mentally ill woman to proper housing, social and medical resources in the community) was really great.

(3) Police officers put up with a lot. In a space of maybe 3 hours, 3 or 4 cars honked loudly and noticeably at the officer I was riding along with. I get alarmed when someone honks their car horn anywhere near me when I'm on the road; can you imagine getting honked at like that on a regular basis? One of the times a person appeared to make a sharp turn JUST for the sake of pulling up behind us and laying on the horn- the officer was worried that the person behind us was trying to hail her, so we actually pulled over to the side (and she also pulled out her gun just in case), to see if the person was going to pull up beside us... and they drove away. WTF man, they just drove up behind us to honk!!! This happened a few other times as well. I asked why she didn't just pull the cars over for doing this, and I suggested that I would totally have pulled them over and then said, "You were honking at me. I thought you needed my help!!!" She said that people enjoy their civil liberties and don't like being pulled over for no reason, and that "besides, you'd be surprised how often people call in to complain." Complaints about an officer can prevent him or her from getting a promotion, etc.

Speaking of things that suck, the officer mentioned that whenever the police had to go into the ER to get a patient's statement (if they were involved in a car crash or some sort of crime), the ER nurses were pretty consistently rude and unhelpful. They thought they were treated this way because they are police officers. I assured her that most ER nurses are equal opportunity assholes in their approach most everybody else who attempts to interact with them while they are doing the most important work in the world. Many ER nurses are wonderful. But many of them are also turds who are unhelpful at best and often unpleasant to boot. Can you tell I'm excited about my upcoming (mandatory) ER weeks?

I have a new respect and appreciation for what police officers do on patrol. So, the next time you see one of our friends in blue... smile and give them a wave! (Honk if you love having your license plates run!)