Ride along part I

A. Blinken….. The other day I was crossing the street by the post office and a sheriff’s car stopped and Bill Anchorson, (NHRN) stuck his head out of the window and said, "hey, asshole, I’ve read your column. Why don’t you ride along with me one of these days so you know a little more what you’re talking about?" "How’s this Friday?" "Meet me at the office at seven." I made it to the office a few minutes before seven and Bill, another officer and the dispatch were there. Bill was there at a desk completing some work on the computer. I asked if I could use my voice recorder and he said, "I figured you would. Get some coffee, I’ll be done here in a minute." I fetched my go-cup and filled it from a pot of thick black coffee that smelled like shellac. Bill said to the dispatcher, "we’re patrolling out toward Howard’s Bar, Tammy. I’ll call in when we’re through the pass," grabbed his jacket and we headed for his car.

Bill’s car is his office, and it’s set up so everything is reachable from the driver’s seat. There was a short-barreled shotgun in a rack between Bill and I; there was a small laptop screen facing him, a GPS plugged into it. There was a small, dash-mounted camera, hooked into the computer. There were buttons my truck sure didn’t have, and a small radar screen was mounted on the dash. Beneath my seat was a large first-aid kit. I flipped on my recorder:

Bill: Three rules: don’t touch my guns, don’t touch my radio or computer, and no matter what, you stay in the car unless I tell you specifically you can get out.

A.B.: What about the siren?

Bill: You can’t reach it, it’s over here. You also can’t just turn it on any time; that would constitute disturbing the peace. The sirens, in conjunction with the lights, are intended to alert citizens to possible danger; you can’t just flip it on because the Bulls won. Maybe when we’re out in the sticks; after all, I have to test the system regularly.

A.B.: Do I have to wear my seatbelt?

Bill: You’ll find my humor doesn’t run that way. Yes, buckle up. Put your coffee in the cup holder, and try not to spill. The other thing is, you can’t use anybody’s real name and you can’t use their voice or words unless you have a separate agreement, got it?

A.B.: Got it.

(We left the parking lot, headed through town and out the back way toward Howard’s Bar (not the real place name. I’ll tell you, though, that the "bar" is not a saloon, but what was once a particularly gold rich gravel bar. The area is "economically depressed" which means that it’s cheap to live there, but it costs a lot in gas to get anywhere, so no one who lives there has a real job. There are a lot of folks on SSI or old folks on retirement, and there are a lot of criminals who can’t get work and so do "odd jobs." No one ever retires doing "odd jobs", it’s like being a rude-boy.)

A.B.: What’s going on in Howard’s Bar?

Bill: Nothing unusual. We don’t consider Howard’s Bar to be any different than any other community in the county. I had a domestic violence call last night and I wanted to double-check my information. I also want to remind one of the families that we’re out here, we know they’re cooking meth, and they better keep it under control or I’ll drop the hammer. There’s also a report on a stolen Celica that I think is parked at a residence I want to check out.

A.B.: Why don’t you just bust them, the meth lab?

Bill: We will, eventually. See, meth is like a demon force, you can’t simply kill it, it comes back in a different place, with different people. You have to wait until the right minute and then take it off behind the head. If I bust them now, we’ll spend a lot of county money and officer time for probably a single bust. The kitchen will just move someplace else, maybe down the street or maybe into your neighborhood. This is a pretty clean operation, they don’t use ether and they don’t dump refuse, they take it to the transfer station and throw it over the fence at night. They don’t leave rusted propane tanks full of hydrochloric acid along the highway, we think they bury them. They probably dump solvents on the ground. All in all, if we bust these people, who we know, something worse might spring up, we don’t know where. Eventually, we’ll get them, but for now, the demon is localized.

(There is a "beep" from something on the dash.)

A.B.: What was that?

Bill: That was Ted Phillep doing 55 in a 45 zone.

A.B.: You aren’t going to go back and ticket him?

Bill: No, he slowed down by the time I passed him, and he’s got a forty-minute drive to make in thirty-five minutes. If I catch him doing it again in the next few days, I’ll cite him. He realizes I saw him, he’ll slow it down. He knows this road better than he knows his wife’s behind, as some might say.

A.B.: Wow, so every time I thought I slowed down before the cop saw me speeding, they actually knew I was speeding?

Bill: Probably. We know a little about the job, you know, we do this every day, just like you (do what I do at my shop) everyday. You and your wacky grandma are wrong, this isn’t a police state. By the way, I knew about her pot patch before you wrote your piece. Officer York came down and told us all about it; we laughed like hell. He could see there was no market value, so he let you go. If we start seeing seedy red weed on the market, we’ll come up and bust you. In the meantime, what is the point, how is society served? See, there are two good reasons we don’t bust everybody all the time. The first is, we have laws and regulations and procedures that govern how we enforce the law. It is very expensive and time-consuming, both for the officers and the courts, and for the citizen, for us to make a bust. We can’t simply arrest someone just because we know they are committing a minor crime, we have to have reasonable suspicion, something to convince a judge. There is paperwork involved. The second is that we understand our role in the community is not to stifle the normal life people enjoy, but to keep it under control. Some of the best police work I do, I don’t do anything, I just show up. By showing up I remind people that we live in an orderly society, a society of law. Without this black and white car driving through once in a while these little backwater communities would become out of control, the strong would prey on the weak. We are here to remind people that the weak are not alone, the full force of our legal system is with them. Hit your girlfriend, molest her kid, we’ll be there eventually, and if you run away from me, my counterpart somewhere else will pick you up. That’s what this car, and this shield on my chest, mean when I show up.

(The radio interrupted, the dispatcher spoke so quick I didn’t understand her, even on the recorder it sounds like "seventeen what’s your twenty?")

Bill: (Into a small radio microphone on his shirt) We’re ten miles east of the junction with Foundry Road.

(Again, the dispatcher speaks so fast, I only catch numbers even on the recorder)

Bill: (Into mike) We’re in route. Hold on, A.B., we get to use the siren after all.

A.B.: What’s up?

Bill: There’s an injury accident at the junction. Probably not too serious, people know kids are at the bus stops this time of the morning and they generally keep it slow. That’s a bad intersection there, though, because the stop sign is so far back, it’s difficult to see traffic coming from the right.

(Siren sounds waaaaaaaaaa)

Bill: This is the old-style wailing siren. This is the European hi-lo. (beee-bawww-beee-bawww) This is the beeping horn but we don’t use it because the local volunteer fire departments all use it. (BAAAAA BAAAAA BAAAAA) This is the one I call the jitter, because I can’t stand to use it. (JIPJIPJIPJIPJIPJIPJIPJIP) I prefer the old style siren. (Waaaaaaaaaaa) I can do things with the lights, too, but protocol is to use the flashing red, white, and blue lights, as they’ve proven to be the most visible.

A.B.: Not far to the junction now. My CPR card is current, if I can help.

Bill: I can’t give you permission to do anything, you have to act on your own. Just stay in the car, though, until I see what’s up.

A.B.: Holy Crap!

Bill: Just relax, we don’t know what’s going on yet. Modern cars have crumple zones, they always look like this in an accident. Just stay put.

(Bill put latex gloves on and jumped out, leaving the lights on. An older faded blue station wagon full of kids had pulled out in front of a newer large red pickup. The station wagon was off the road and the truck was still resting against it. A woman I’m guessing was Mom appeared to be unharmed, but was hysterical, her hands tangled in her hair. A man, later turned out to be the driver of the pickup, had the back door of the non-crashed side open and was leaning into the car. I couldn’t see it, but he was holding his hand on the sucking chest wound of a little girl in a car seat. Beside the road, about twenty feet from the car, was a boy about ten holding a little girl about one; they had blood on their clothes, didn’t appear to be hurt. Bill reached out and took the woman’s arm in his hand, but he leaned over and talked to the man in the car. Then he turned to me:)

Bill: Blinken, bring the first aid kit from under your seat.

(I jumped out, grabbed the first aid kit and raced over to Bill, who was talking to the Mom.)

Bill: It’s all right ma’am, it looks worse than it is. The ambulance is already coming, it should be here soon, just relax, we’ll take care of your little girl.

(Bill took the kit, pulled a large bandage out and took off the wrapping, which he replaced in the kit.)

Bill: A.B., have a look at those kids and give me a report. O.K., sir, step back and let me in on "three": one, two, three.

(The man, his hands and shirt covered in blood, stepped back and nearly fell down; I caught him. He looked at me and said, "I couldn’t see them, they pulled right out before I could stop." I nodded and went to the boy and the little girl.)

A.B.: Are you guys hurt?

Boy: No, we’re not hurt, that’s my sister’s blood, we can’t wipe it off.

A.B.: Is it all right if I look at you?

(I did the standard "body scan" and found no signs of injury.)

A.B.: Are you sure you didn’t hit your head or hurt your neck?

Boy: No, it’s my sister’s blood.

A.B.: OK, well, you still look a little shaky, why don’t you and your little sister sit on that big rock right there. If you feel funny or anything, tell me.

(I reported to Bill who was still leaning in to the car, and saw for the first time a girl about six in a car seat, covered in blood and breathing in small gasps; she was semi-conscious. Her blouse had been ripped back and the large bandage was over her ribs on the crash side. There was a long shard of chrome-plastic grill covered in blood on the ground outside, which I think was probably what caused the open chest wound. I told Bill I thought the other two kids were all right.)

Bill: Watch her, Aaron, while I get a C-collar.

(He got out and I climbed in to comfort the girl, but I was shaken by what I saw; there was blood everywhere, the little girl was very, very pale and nearly panting. Bill came right back and relieved me. )

Bill: (After a minute) O.K., we’re going to take her out of her seat just as she is, she doesn’t weigh much. We’ll put her on that blanket and then, with her knees still bent, we lay her back. Got it?

(We took her out and lay her down as he said; he covered her with another blanket and put a car-seat cushion under her knees. By then a state highway cop was on scene. Bill briefed him while I stayed with the girl. Mom came over and knelt by the child, crying and making apologies for the crash)

Bill: O.K., A.B., let’s clean up and go.

A.B.: But, the girl…

Bill: We’ve done all we can, the ambulance is on it’s way up the hill, and Ed is here and he’s taken incident command. We can go. Grab that bag and follow me.

(We went to the trunk of his car where we washed our hands and arms, then we were back in the car and travelling like nothing had happened.)

A.B.: Wow, I can’t believe what just happened.

Bill: Well, I don’t want you to think this happens every day. There are probably five collisions a year in this stretch, and most of them are non-injury. The little girl will probably be all right if they can keep her from going into shock. As you probably noticed, most of the hemorrhaging was from the superficial gash on her scalp. Sometimes scalp injuries really bleed. The more dangerous wound is pretty small, in between the ribs. We hope she’ll be all right.

A.B.: Whose fault was the accident?

Bill: We don’t know. Since there is an injury, there will be a highway investigation team coming up to gather evidence. Maybe the mother will be cited for pulling out, or maybe the pickup was going too fast.

A.B.: Wow. Poor kid.

Bill: Well, people drive for years with no accidents, and they get complacent, you know? They think nothing can happen to them, but it isn’t true. A deer entering the roadway, a rock from some of these steep cuts we have in this area, or a dozing driver in the other lane, all of these things are out there, and the more alert you are, the more likely you are to survive them. People just don’t look at it that way because they don’t see what I see.

(Time passed with no one talking. I kept seeing the pale, panting little girl, wondering if she would be alive tonight. The radar gun sounded.)

Bill: That’s a little too fast, hold on I’m turning around right up here.

(He turned the patrol car around in a wide space and turned on his lights and siren. He called in the license number and a description for "wants and warrants". The car was a blue compact car, and it seemed to speed up at first, and Bill put his foot in the firewall and the patrol car leapt forward, pinning me to the seat. Then the blue car started to slow down and Bill flashed his headlights. The car pulled over.)

Bill: This is one of the most dangerous moments we have, approaching a traffic stop. The other are domestic violence situations. Stay here.

(Bill adjusted the camera to completely film the stop. He un-snapped his holster. He stood a little behind the window of the passenger side with his hand on his gun and talked with the driver. I could see a person in the passenger seat and two people in the back; they all looked like guys. I rolled my window down, but couldn’t quite make out what he said. He took some papers, gave them back. The computer in the car whirred and something was printed out. He came back, ripped it off, took it to the car, still being careful to glance in the back window before he approached, and again he stopped just behind the driver, who had to reach behind to take the ticket. When we were done Bill came back and the car slowly headed off down the road.)

Bill: Just four guys going up to the lakes. You never know, though. I know an officer who got shot during a traffic stop because there was a kidnapped child in the car and the driver just freaked out. It was a snub .38, though, and the officer was able to draw his service pistol and fire two rounds into the suspect’s head, which ended the confrontation. Tell you what, why don’t you try it?

A.B.: Try what?

Bill: Get out and come around and talk to me about speeding.

(I got out of the car, went around to the window and, smiling, bent over to admonish Bill for speeding; I glanced down by the door and was horrified to see the bore of his pistol, a very big bore, pointing at my face.)

A.B.: Holy Crap!

Bill: Don’t you feel a little vulnerable? I always do. Fortunately, most folks are just folks.

A.B.: That’s nerve wracking.

Bill: Jump in, we have a ways to go today.

Continued in Part II