Just Another Saturday Night . . .

A high-pitched tone sounded over the crackle of the radio inside the cabin of the pickup truck. The driver’s eyes snapped to the computer screen mounted on the dash between us, then immediately returned focus to the road.

“Did you hear that? There’s been an accident. Backup requested.” He pointed to the screen displaying all the patrol cars in the area. “We’re closest.”

He responded over the radio, “Unit on its way.”

Earlier that Saturday evening, my ride-along with the police started quite calmly with a tour of the department. The officer assigned to me, I’ll call him Officer D, explained the workings of the dispatch center. Dispatchers are the equivalent of the central nervous system, akin to air traffic controllers, communicating and coordinating with everyone in the field. The law enforcement technology is impressive for a city of our size – drones, a backup emergency dispatch center, a mini-forensic lab, and countywide shared radio frequencies to facilitate actions across departments. I asked for a tour of holding cells, where people await transfer to the county jail. I’ll spare you the details of what the officers deal with inside those cells but wearing a hazmat suit wouldn’t be overkill.

My ride for the evening was a souped-up Ford F250, faster than their regular patrol cars. Think of riding in the cockpit of an airplane and you’ll get the idea – interior and exterior cameras, license plate readers, computer, a display tracking all units. Unlike an airplane, the back seat is equipped with a single-prisoner transport, and the truck bed holds LED traffic cones and deployable spikes.

Our first stop of the evening occurred before we left the parking lot. A lost set of car keys was duly logged using the on-board software. I never realized how much of today’s policing is paperwork, often taking hours after a shift ends.

The action picked up with a report of a man throwing rocks at cars. From prior encounters, Officer D had an idea of who the man was, and we patrolled his neighborhood without seeing him.

Next stop: a drive through a park frequented by groups at night, many of whom often had active warrants. After an uneventful patrol of the perimeter, Officer D pulled over less than 50 feet away from a four-way intersection to enter a report. As he was typing, he said, “Watch. Someone’s going to run that stop sign.”

I laughed. No way. The sun was still up and the Ford F250 with it light bar and emblems was highly conspicuous. Within less than a minute, and true to Officer D’s prediction, a car blew past the stop sign. We followed the car until we could safely pull it over. Officer D recognized the driver, whom he’d given a verbal warning a few months earlier. The hurry this time? The man was rushing to a baby shower at 7:30 on a Saturday night. Officer D let him go with a written warning. The next time the driver would get a ticket.

As we patrolled a residential neighborhood, I peppered the officer with questions about his job and training. How did the long hours and stress impact his personal life? He shared that the pain of a fistfight with three large drug-dealers didn’t compare to the heartbreak of trying— and failing —to save a baby that had stopped breathing. What about the effect on his own family? Officer D uses an app that lets his wife monitor his heartbeat real time.

When the implications of his statement sank in, I changed the subject. I learned he was a taser instructor, a weapon near and dear to some of the characters in my novel. He described being hit by one during training, not an experience to repeat. Did you know? Different propellants can fire the prongs up to 100 feet. Another interesting tidbit about pepper spray: Police departments now use water-based versus oil-based sprays. Turns out certain kinds of pepper sprays are highly flammable, and a taser hit can ignite the suspect.

A high-pitched tone interrupted his taser lecture.

“Did you hear that? There’s been an accident. Backup requested.” Officer D pointed to the screen displaying all the patrol cars in the area. “We’re closest.”

He responded over the radio, “Unit on its way.”

The wreck happened on a busy highway cutting through the town. One vehicle, no fatalities. With a few taps on the screen, a route appeared, and we accelerated past cars that decided to slow to a crawl with a marked police vehicle in their rearview mirror.

As we turned onto the highway, Officer D unhooked his seatbelt, a move that didn’t seem safe. He explained, “That was my sergeant on the radio. I heard stress in her voice. And I don’t want to get tangled in my seatbelt if I need to get out of the truck in a hurry.”

Lights on, we pulled behind two other patrol cars and a fire engine. A car had launched from the highway, through a brick sign, and landed upright on the other side of a ditch.

“Stay here,” Officer D ordered and jumped out. By some miracle, the driver, highly intoxicated, was ambulatory with only minor injuries. He proved to be an amiable drunk who knew the drill and went along with the officer’s instructions peacefully. With the driver arrested and in handcuffs, Officer D placed him in the truck’s transport cell behind me, and we drove to the nearest hospital.

I spent the rest of the evening in the emergency room with Officer D and his sergeant as they filled out paperwork and waited on third party EMT’s to do a timely blood draw. We weren’t alone. Other police officers and their arrestees soon trickled into the emergency room.

Then another high-pitched tone sounded over their hand radios. A shooting on the other side of town.

Just another Saturday night . . .

***

Brooke Terpening – A former software geek and attorney, today I’m retired in Colorado with my husband. As a Miami attorney, some of the notable capital cases I worked on included Casey Anthony, Ariel Hernandez, and Michel Escoto. A graduate of the Lighthouse Book Project, I serve on the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America board as their newsletter editor. When I’m not writing mystery and legal suspense, I volunteer with my therapy dogs at hospitals, police departments, and mental health facilities.