Police Ride-along

In preparation for Governance Day for Leadership Spokane, our class had the opportunity to do police ride-alongs. I was paired with an officer who was one year older than me and who coincidentally had gone to the same high school as me. His grand-mother-in-law was a resident where I worked.

The night started off pretty slow. After going through orientation of how to light flares, where to find the first aid kit and how to use the police radio and call for backup, the shift officially began.

We responded first to a man who had called 911. He had passed a few men walking by him on the street and he believed that they were going to kill him. His name was Donny. He told us that he had just gotten out of Sacred Heart Medical Center and had been seen for chest pain. He also told us that he was homeless. He expressed that he had been down on his luck and had some depression issues. The officer told him that we would drive around and see if we could see any small group of guys walking around. Donny seemed ok with that and we left.

Later we responded to a Domestic Violence call. A man had called to report that his girlfriend was hitting him. As it turned out, the man had been beating her. She had fresh bruises all over her body. She didn't want him to go to jail because she knew that when he got out, she would feel the wrath again. She had just left a women's shelter and didn't want to go back. Me, being in plain clothes, standing with her as she pleaded to me not to have her "man" taken away gave me every reason to tell her to "get out of this relationship! You deserve so much better than this." However, I'd been asked to be a 'fly on the wall' and to not engage in conversation with the parties involved with the call. She told us that her granddaughter had just died and that she was very upset by that. The "man" was taken to jail by another officer. We waited for another officer to come and take photos of the woman in case she decided to file charges against him.

The next call we responded to was some minors being noisy down by the Maple Street Bridge. As we approached the group, one young man attempted to throw out his beer but didn't after being advised not to by the officers. After the IDs were checked and cleared, the teens were asked to be quiet, stop drinking and get out of that area. They seemed thankful that the officers were so easy on them.

The last call was from Donny again. He had called 911 and said that he was going to commit suicide. He had two bottles of pills and some fingernail clippers with him. We responded with another officer. He had only ventured about three blocks from the last time that we'd seen him. The medications and clippers were removed from his person. The officers gave him a choice, he could go to a homeless shelter or they could take him to the hospital so that he could talk to a social worker. He opted to go to the hospital. So, we all stood outside waiting for the ambulance to come and transport him. The man didn't seem to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. He just seemed to be down on his luck as he had said before. He believed that there were people who were going to hurt him in the homeless shelter. That's why he didn't want to go. He seemed overly conscious that there was a woman present and seemed embarassed when an officer found a condom in Donny's pocket.

I asked the officer, why we couldn't have taken Donny to the hospital. He said, if the Domestic Violence victim had asked us to take her to the women's shelter, we could have done that. But not a suicidal man. So, the taxpayers paid for the two officers to babysit him until the amulance arrived. AMR came with two men to take Donny to the hospital. And who knows how many times this man has been in and out of the hospital.

My life will forever be changed by what I witnessed that evening.