APD Ride

Holy Shit what a night. It started off with me meeting at the Anchorage Police Department. I then got to go inside and check out the nervous system of the area. I sat in on the briefing for the night (shift started at 11pm) which included some UFC-type guy who broke somebody's jaw completely at the Bush Co., to the point where it had to be wired shut. Later on we would scope out his neighborhood.

But first, after the briefing and after I got my bullet-proof vest, we hit the streets. The first violation was a broken headlight. I'm not talking burned-out bulb, but a completely missing headlight. They got away with a verbal warning. We then got a call from a gas station that had a robbery from some kids. They had taken some beer and the thief handed it off to a friend on a bicycle who sped away. We tracked the bike down at a local park with a mostly drank beer on a picnic table whose contents were still cold. They brought out the canine for the job. It tracked the guy to a creek, where they found prints, but there could have been so many places on the other side for the person to go to that the chase was given up. The beer was taken for prints.

After getting back on the road and poking around shopping centers we got a call to search for a dialed-in DUI. (Whose wife calls in on their husband?) That didn't pan out, but as we were driving around we got someone who ran a red light right in front of us. She got a ticket. Within blocks of that, there was another car that ran a red light. He didn't actually have a valid ID as his license was suspended. He was also not allowed into a certain military base until 2061. He got a verbal warning, but on the next encounter he could be arrested. Then as we stopped another traffic violator where we were about to check the ID, we got an APB on a shooting. The person's license practically got thrown back at them, we got back in the car, and shot across town to where shotguns and massive amounts of backup were on the scene. It turned out to be a disgruntled partier who was kicked out of the party. At first there were only a few by the door who were asked to back up, handcuffed, and escorted to their own police car. At first one of them didn't want to get on the ground because they didn't want to get their jeans dirty. Oh, hey, you have a SHOTGUN POINTED AT YOUR FACE! Eventually things were sorted out, there was no shooting, but there were plenty of MIPs to go around. After all the mess was sorted out at least 30 people were lined up. One kid had a sack of weed on him, not to mention quite the mouth, so we ended up taking him to jail.

We enter this large hangar-looking bay and bring him inside to the holding area. The wall is lined with handcuffed people. Some are making the best of their situation and laughing when they could, others couldn't help but complain the entire time. Two of them had been pepper-sprayed, so I can't really blame them. One who got pepper sprayed just kept trying to clear the snot from his nose and wipe his eyes. The other resorted to vocalizing everything which antagonized all of the other people being held to make fun of this guy. He was nicknamed "Napoleon Dynamite" while in there because of his "jew fro". And he looked the worst out of everyone. Before I realized that some of the other people in there were his friends, I thought he was a bum. His shirt was ripped, as were his pants, and he was covered in grass stains and snot with maybe a bit of puke on his cheeks. He kept complaining about the cuff on his right hand. At one point he broke down and offered the police to just "fuck him in the ass". He couldn't see shit and kept putting up a fight so the police kept kneeling on him. You'd think he'd learn after all that. There were mostly guys in there but toward the end there were to girls. One was REALLY young, the other needed more clothing.

That whole ordeal from the time we busted up the party to the time we left the jail was at least 2.5 hours. From there we checked on a domestic abuse call from a neighbor but the woman said nothing was the matter. By 6am, this meant lunchtime so we went to the City Diner. After lunch and almost immediately after getting in the cars with minimal amounts of BSing that followed, we got a call for a rape which had a shoot across town. It had been settled by the time we got there, but there were literally a dozen cop cars outside the place. Then immediately after that was settled, we had to shoot down all the way to Potter's Marsh where some not-so-with-it guy was wandering on the tracks. We got to walk them a bit but he finally made his way to the highway. He was getting a talking to as we left.

That brought us pretty much to 8am. Oh man am I tired but I had to recount most of that before I forgot it. If anyone gets the chance to do that, it's such an eye-opening experience. It makes you not only get a cop's perspective, which makes you less scared of them and more knowledgeable of protocol, but it also shows how much you should respect these people, even if some of them like their jobs a little too much. But that's not such a bad thing. The only thing I might change is getting a little more ready for the hours I'd have to be up. I was there from 10:30pm to 8am, and I was dragging a bit for the last two hours. But, oh man, what an adventure. The adrenaline sure got flowing.