Ride Along

I'm a fan of Kevin Hart, but I haven't gotten the chance to see his film with Ice Cube, Ride Along. However, I did have my own ride along with the local police department and it was an experience, to say the least. Read my response below. 

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On Saturday, February 22nd, 2014, I participated in a ride along with a police officer from the local police department. The shift lasted from 5:00pm-2:00am. Going into the ride-along, I was excited and I expected to come out of it with a greater appreciation for police officers and their work. In my community, there is an inherent distrust of police officers, but I had always been one to believe that at least some of it HAD to be exaggerated and unmerited.  I arrived at the station and met the female officer with whom I would be riding with for the evening. She was a young, Hispanic junior officer and had been on the force for two years (note: there is a probation period of 18 months, so she is really new). She introduced me to the other officers on duty and gave me a quick tour of the facility, including the holding cell, the evidence processing room, the weapons armory, and the fitness center. I’ll also mention that I introduced myself as a law student on assignment for a course, and I did not disclose my dual identity as a sociologist.

Because there was an issue with her normally assigned vehicle, we had to pick another car to drive. To my astonishment, she intentionally sought out a vehicle that did not have a dashboard camera. Apparently, this was a common practice among the officers because as we were looking another officer getting off duty said, “Looking for a car? Pick #2354. It doesn’t have a camera.” I was really disturbed. First, all of the cars don’t have cameras. Secondly, though it is understandable to not want your every move captured on camera, cameras keep police officers accountable and they were evading accountability. Afterwards, we get in the car and she showed me how her computer works and all of its capabilities. I asked several questions about why she wanted to be a police officer and some of her experiences on the force.

Our first call (after a stop for soda at Circle K where the clerk knew the officer’s name) was to an accident with injuries. A Hispanic woman with a child in a van ran into a light pole. It was thrilling to be the first responder, but I was quickly bored after spending about 3 hours waiting around as they blocked the road and waited for the electric company to come check the pole. I laughed when the owner of the lounge that the accident occurred in front of invited me in and asked, “You smoke hookah?” 

Our second call was in a response to a child abuse case. I was really nervous as the officer prepped me in the car. “This is a child abuse case. Apparently the guy is a sheriff, so this could be a problem. People are really serious when it comes to issues with their children. The child had bruises all on his face, head, and back.” We pull up to a home in a upper-middle class neighborhood in the northwestern area of the jurisdiction. The guy is an African American male standing on his porch with his hands behind his back. The porch light is on. The officer continues her warnings: “You see that? He has a gun behind his back.” I get even more nervous. I said, “Umm… Shouldn’t I just stay in the car?”

Eventually her and another responding officer go in and talk to the family, and they motion for me to come into the house. Apparently there was never a gun, and the ‘abusive sheriff’ was actually a correctional officer and he and his wife serve as foster parents to multiple children, including an 18 month old. The 18 month old was known for climbing out of his crib and had fallen between the crib and the wall the night before, resulting in numerous bruises the next day. Unbelievable right? The experienced foster parents thought so too, so they took pictures when the incident happened and filed an incident report immediately after.  I thought the call was over, but we had to wait for the officers to finish up at the hospital and for child’s services to come to the house.  At the time, I appreciated the extended protocol in matters dealing with children. The officers and I were supposed to wait at the house to make sure that the parents didn’t leave. And by wait, I mean babysit. We sat in their living room for FOUR hours, mind you it’s after midnight, the parents are ready to go to bed. It seemed really awkward to have two police officers, a random ride along girl, and the parents sitting around at midnight watching Shark Tales.

I took this opportunity to talk to the officers and get to know a little about their work, and implicitly test their knowledge of criminal procedure, of course. I asked questions such as “So when can you search someone? Can you go inside their house? When can you search a car?” The other officer, a male junior officer, had some interesting advice for me: “Don’t be a defense lawyer. All they care about is whether the search is good or not. They don’t care if the person did it. All they care about is how we searched them and if it was valid.” I’m not sure if I hid my surprise well but I attempted to as I probed him. “You mean, they only care about rights?” He responded, “Yeah, that stuff gets in the way. It’s just an obstacle to our job. Even if we know they did it, we still have to prove it. Even if we know it in our heart that they did it.” He went on to talk about how his favorite part of the job is chasing people who try to run from him, how they mostly all have drugs, and how Tucson is such a hub for drugs and he felt it was his sole duty to clear the streets of drugs. I wondered if the stopping, chasing, and searching of people walking on the streets (who I assume are mostly recreational users with small amounts of drugs) was making a dent.

After we left the foster home and grabbed some food, we began our patrol for the night. The jurisdictional boundaries were roughly Silverbell to the west, Campbell to the east, Speedway to the south, and River to the north.  During our patrol, we never went north of Fort Lowell (apart from getting lunch) or east of 1st Ave. This observation caused me to question the ‘high crime area’ designations. I’m sure statistics reflect that there is less crime in northern areas, but the records will always show more stops and searches in high crime areas if the police never even go to other areas. The most disturbing portion of my ride along was when the officer asked me, “Wanna see a search?” A few minutes later, we pull up on a couple walking on the sidewalk. It was disturbing because she seemed to be doing it for our entertainment rather than for any reasonable suspicion or probable cause. They consented to a search. They definitely were familiar with the process and knew their rights. When she asked if she could search the guy, he responded, “No, you’re not allow to, but you can.” Walking down the street at night in a high crime neighborhood was enough to be stopped by the police (it was just an encounter, so no reasonable suspicion or probable cause is necessary), and that seems oppressive to me.

Needless to say, I had an eventful ride along and so much more occurred. I walked away uneasy, not necessarily about the amount of authority granted to the police, but rather about the way this particular officer seemed to abuse her authority in an intimidating and oppressive way.  Overall, I have a lot of respect for officers because they never know what they are walking into and their safety should be the top priority.  Yet, I do understand why minority communities distrust police officers. It is a crime to be a drug user or a prostitute, but oppressive police tactics (like stopping and searching people for fun) can also make it feel like a crime to be poor or a person of color.