My ride-along experience

[replay]

I did my first ride-along yesterday, as part of the requirement prior to getting into the police academy. I had always wanted to do a ride-along even without being forced to, but I always put it off and never got around to it until now. I started by sitting in on the graveyard shift roll call, and there were probably 20-25 officers here. I had to introduce myself along with the other ride-along person. I was then assigned to an officer who was still on probabtion - he had only been hired December 2001, and had just recently been allowed to start going on probationary solo (no FTO).

He was a very cool guy, continually answering all my questions throughout the night, giving me tips for the academy and when I'm on the streets, and letting me tag along with him whenever we got out of the car. He really seemed to enjoy his work, paperwork and all.

Our first call was a 415F - family disturbance. A 2-man car (rookie and his FTO) and our car was sent out to the apartments of the mother and son quarreling. The mother called twice earlier in the day. Seemed like one was cancelled and the other one officers just went out to talk to them and left. I won't get into the details of the call but I could see the confidence and other subtleties exuded by my partner vs the other rookie. The other guy didn't sound too convincing and after a while with the discussion getting no where, my partner stepped in and took control.

The next call was a cold one where the troublemakers were already gone - we had probably 3 cold calls throughout the night. The call after that, we had to process paperwork for a lady who had committed a petty theft at a big store. She apparently came in the day prior and either did steal or attempted to steal something but for some reason the security was not able to get her. For some crazy reason, she came back today and tried to steal again and got caught.

Another call featured us talking to 4 teens/young adults in a park. They were not supposed to be there past sunset. I was surprised when it was just him and I walking up to these 4 in a pitchblack area. They checked out okay and turned out to be just hanging out, waiting for some friends to arrive before they went clubbing, so we let them go. Afterwards, I asked my partner wasn't what he did risky - going up to 4 people basically alone, and he said it was but he knew his buddies were nearby and could trust on them to back him up. His buddies did back him up about 2-3 minutes after we started talking to the 4 guys.

The best call of the night was right after the previous call where we were summoned out to a party that almost ended badly until a group of party crashes left, before we got there. My partner saw a Camarro that looked suspicious and was going to check him out, but another squad car was already on its tail. This Camarro is driving probably 40-50, then heads into the suicide lane and suddenly turns left into a darkened residence, pauses for a few seconds, then shuts off his lights and opens the door to get out, like he's about to head home or something. This just doesn't check out so the two squad cars pretend to disburse and hide out in darkened off-streets. The suspect, thinking were gone, starts walking down the road towards the junction we were hiding at. Our car spots him, and then he spots us, and he does a 180 back towards the house he parked at. We speed up to him and stop right in front of him, spotlights on. My partner goes out and starts doing a preliminary pat down and asks the suspects questions. I stay in the car until my partner tells me to come out because I was unsure whether I would be an obstacle for him should anything happen. I also started shivering at this point, I think my adrenaline was kicking in.

It turns out this car is stolen, that he had just gotten out of jail the previous week, and he has a crack pipe in his pants. During the next 30 minutes or so while my partner is processing the initial paperwork, the suspect is rambling on and on about: how he did not know it was stolen, how he was tricked by his friend because he was just doing him a favor, how he could them to the other suspect's residence, that the other suspect was driving by soon and that we could nab him, that he is about to lose custody of his kids, wondering what he did wrong and claiming he was a victim, asking to be let go if he helped capture the other guy, and so on. Neither of us believe him and just keep silent, while I watch the cop fill out the paperwork inside the car. After about 30 minutes of hearing his BS, he gives up and says he was lying about the whole thing and to just take him to jail. LOL.

We took him to the local jail and probably had to sit around or do paperwork for an hour. There were about 10 other suspects processed before he was up and then another 7 or so when we finally left that place. Another suspect another cop had brought in kept cussing and taunting the cops the whole time. He also got up from the bench and attacked another suspect who had called him names (LOL) and then all the cops subdued him. The suspect was spitting also so they put the net on him

I got to see the sobering area where they toss drunks until they mellow out or sober up or something, there must've been 30 people in a small room, all rubbing skin with each other. Some were sleeping on the hard floor. A jailer told me earlier in the day, when it was less crowded, one of those guys in there stood up from wherever he was sitting, whipped out his thing, and just peed everywhere in the room, THEN went over to the sink to wash his hands. HAHA.

Anyway, after processing, he dropped me off back at the substation and we parted ways. It was a great experience. Now I'll be looking forward to the academy some more and hopefully join him on the streets in 6 months' time.

[darrell]

One thing I was never allowed to do was ride with a guy that didnt have at least 2 -3 years on the department. I am glad you had a good time. i am familiar with 415 F, used to be called family fights. My Cj teacher worked in Stockton for a few years.

[Darin]

Sounds more exciting than my ride along. I only got to see a 76 year old woman get arrested.

[vbgecko]

I love ride-a-longs. Dog shift is my favorite. Its amazing how much you can learn just by observing. The town where I live is only about 4,000+ people, so you expect nothing to happen. I thought the most exciting thing that was going to happen that night was a code 3 to accident (ditch diving was a new expirence for me). I was quite wrong when the officer arrested my old high school classmate. He stole a car so I also was privy to a felony stop my first night out *lol*.