Ride Along in Sac-Town

Back when I was in high school, I had the same English teacher for both my freshman and senior years, Mr. Hazel. Hazel was also a big fan of police ride-alongs (and, incidentally, the show COPS) and he encouraged all of us to go on one. It has been on my to-do list ever since.

Fast forward to 2010, when Matt is sent to Sacramento for work to chum around with the sheriff's department for 8 weeks. It comes up that the officers want the wife to go on a ride-along. My response: Oh hell yeah. Finally, I'll be able to knock that off the bucket list. So, when Matt and the COPS crew showed up to go to work yesterday, I was sent off on patrol with Deputy Mike. After asking me if I was any good with a gun (and I said I'm useless with a handgun but can hold my own with a rifle or shotgun), he instructed me on how to unlock the rifle in the car and said, "If I'm dying out there, I fully expect you to unload this thing on whoever needs it." OK. Didn't I take an oath last year to not do any killing?

My impression of Mike was that he's a Cop through and through. He was made to do this. He loves the chase. To complete the Cop image, he's in hella good shape, shaves his head clean everyday, wears mirrored Oakleys, and chews a lot of gum. The guy is not afraid to confront anyone about anything. He spends the majority of any given shift seeking out potential perps--a process that seemed to me akin to finding a needle in a haystack. But there is method to his madness.

In the daylight hours, he likes to do what he calls "profiling," and he described it this way:

"Profiling isn't about race. People make that mistake all the time. It's about the way the guy carries himself, the way he looks over his shoulder at you, and the image he conveys. You can just tell which guys are dirty and which ones aren't. And it doesn't matter a lick whether they're white or black or anything else. Their 'color' is just dirty."

And this method of his works for him. For instance, we were cruising down the street, running plates at random to find a stolen car, and this old burgundy BMW passes us going the other direction. He watches it as it goes by and says to me, "See that guy? Now that guy looks like a dirty motherfucker. And I think I know that car. Let's see what he does." So Mike pulls a slow U-turn, and sure enough, the BMW was off like a rocket and almost out of sight. Then Mike got all charged up. "The chase is on!" he cheered as he called it in, and ran full code (lights & sirens) after him. The pursuit led us through a network of neighborhood streets, as our perp tried to lose us with a lot of right turns--we were pulling corners, tires squealing, at approximately Warp 9. But no matter how fast we went, we couldn't quite catch that ratty BMW. Finally, the guy just pulls to a stop in the middle of a street and takes off running into someone's backyard. Mike slams the ol' Crown Vic to a screeching halt and takes after him, muttering, "Oh, no you don't you dirty little poo-butt" (I'm not kidding about the term "poo-butt"--it's a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department special and they all say it). It all happened so quickly that I was left stunned and figured that it might be in my best interest to stay in the car, which I did, my finger poised at the ready on the toggle that unlocks the rifle. So I watched all the neighbors come out of their houses and stare at me, as if I was a cop who wasn't doing my job. Then I watched the BMW--apparently still in drive--drift its way lazily down the street, ride up on the sidewalk and back down again, before scraping along the rear corner of a white Nissan and coming to a stop. I wanted to go stop the car before it hit someone else's car, but that little voice--you know the one--inside me said, "Oh no the hell you don't. Your ass stays in this car." I was told later that this was the right call.

Mike wasn't able to catch the guy, who launched himself over a bunch of fences, jumping from yard to yard. So he came running back to the car, in a foul mood for missing his perp, while all the other units and a helicopter arrived to join in the hunt. We went on a lengthy K9 search for him, and we found his Celtics jersey, a wad of cash and a bag of weed. I learned that the K9 dogs are always looking for the same scent: fear. I also learned that Gunther needs to get his act together. If the big old German Shepherd can be controlled with the quietest of commands and a flick of the hand, then the Corgi shouldn't require constant struggles for dominance just to go for a walk.

Mike gave me a fist bump, congratulating me on scoring a pursuit before Matt did.

We spent the next few hours taking some calls, running more plates at random and dealing with some folks who were driving around without their lights on. I even had to limp my way through some bad Spanish to help out (go high school Spanish!). We flew down the dark streets and debated the merit of jumping the car at the train tracks. Mike swears he can really get it to "go all Dukes of Hazzard." But we only succeeded in a small hop.

This enchanted evening came to a close when he spotted a woman in a primer gray El Camino "cleaning her tires on the curb"--that's slang for drunk driving. She woefully failed the "follow my finger" eye exam and proceeded to plead continuously that he let her go with a warning ("I'll call my sister to pick me up. I won't even drive, I promise."), while he put her in the back of the Crown Vic. "No," he calmly repeated again and again, every time she asked him. I wouldn't have been so patient. We waited for Highway Patrol to show up and run the full gamut of the DUI tests. During this time, she opted to poo herself in the back of the car, and seemed oblivious to the resultant aroma as she continued to plead her case to him.

He, however, was not oblivious, which he made quite clear to anyone in earshot.

"Oh, my God! Did you doo-doo yourself?" (again, not kidding) he demanded. "Oh, my God, you did! You did! Oh, why did you doo-doo my car? Come on...Oh, God, that's gonna smell for a week. Oh, man, I gotta hose this thing out now. I can't even focus right now. I just can't." He scowled as he filled out the DUI paperwork, handed everything over to Highway Patrol and we drove quickly back to the station (windows open), where we parked the trusty Crown Vic sideways on a hill and hit the backseat with the hose until the water ran clear. As a bonus, we even found us a crack pipe under the seat.

And that, Constant Readers, is a night on patrol with the Sacramento Sheriff's Department. I highly recommend it.