Katie in Chicago (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} pass_da_pierogi) wrote,@ 2008-01-06 12:04:00 |
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back to it
Last quarter I went on a police ride-along while researching my beat for class. I was sent along on a cold Thursday evening (thank goodness for warm bullet-proof vests) with two cops, one of whom was 6 foot 7. I couldn't stop starting at his enormously long legs.
They weren't usually partners, so I got to be a part of their getting to know one another. The first thing they did was stop at Dunkin Donuts to pick up coffee.
We got called to a domestic dispute in an apartment complex. I expected to have to stay in the car, but the officers told me I could come along. One held the door for the next, who held the door for me. I didn't realize the door was so heavy and let it slam behind me.
I lingered half a flight of stairs behind them when they knocked on the door to the apartment. They were let in, and the second officer told me to stand outside the door, which they left open. I could hear everything, but was out of sight.
The couple had been married only three months. They had been having their first big fight when the wife called the police.
The fight had started when the wife saw the husband talking to another woman on the street. He argued that she had gone overboard with her jealousy. But the real issue, it seemed, was that the husband had been calling his wife names and insulting her since they got married.
"Look, there are, what, seven pictures in here with the two of you holding hands," one of the officers said. "Obviously you're in love."
After some discussion, they got them to apologize to one another.
When they started writing their report, they asked the man for an i.d. The woman took one of the officers out into the hallway.
"Oh," she exclaimed when she saw me standing at her door.
"She's with us," the officers said. How bizarre for this poor woman.
I retreated back down to the landing and heard the woman telling the officer that her husband, who was African, was applying for citizenship and that she hoped this wouldn't affect his chances. He said it wouldn't.
That was our most interesting call of the night. Otherwise, the officers wrote up a report of a minor car accident and bought me Cuban food for dinner, and we spent the rest of the time speeding and slowing over Chicago's "speed humps" toward calls other officers got to first.
We talked about the officers' wives, one Chinese and the other Italian. We talked about traveling. They answered my questions about police cameras and where to find information about fire-related incidents. We talked about journalism - one of the guys worked in broadcast on the side. At dinner, we made fun of their fellow officers, one of whom accidentally went into the women's restroom, which was clearly labeled in not one but two languages as such.
For some reason we talked about British accents, and by the end of the night they were both using "well" (as in "That was well good") more or less correctly. It was fun hanging out with them.
After my ride-along was over, they drove me to a fire station to try to get me a report about a fire that had recently occurred. They had told me the street where it had happened was lined with buildings that hadn't passed code. I was hoping to write an article about this, but the quarter ran out before I could process a Freedom of Information Act request.
We didn't get the report, but it was so nice to have someone official backing me up when I went into the station. Afterward, they drove me back to my car and waved goodbye.
Last quarter I went on a police ride-along while researching my beat for class. I was sent along on a cold Thursday evening (thank goodness for warm bullet-proof vests) with two cops, one of whom was 6 foot 7. I couldn't stop starting at his enormously long legs.
They weren't usually partners, so I got to be a part of their getting to know one another. The first thing they did was stop at Dunkin Donuts to pick up coffee.
We got called to a domestic dispute in an apartment complex. I expected to have to stay in the car, but the officers told me I could come along. One held the door for the next, who held the door for me. I didn't realize the door was so heavy and let it slam behind me.
I lingered half a flight of stairs behind them when they knocked on the door to the apartment. They were let in, and the second officer told me to stand outside the door, which they left open. I could hear everything, but was out of sight.
The couple had been married only three months. They had been having their first big fight when the wife called the police.
The fight had started when the wife saw the husband talking to another woman on the street. He argued that she had gone overboard with her jealousy. But the real issue, it seemed, was that the husband had been calling his wife names and insulting her since they got married.
"Look, there are, what, seven pictures in here with the two of you holding hands," one of the officers said. "Obviously you're in love."
After some discussion, they got them to apologize to one another.
When they started writing their report, they asked the man for an i.d. The woman took one of the officers out into the hallway.
"Oh," she exclaimed when she saw me standing at her door.
"She's with us," the officers said. How bizarre for this poor woman.
I retreated back down to the landing and heard the woman telling the officer that her husband, who was African, was applying for citizenship and that she hoped this wouldn't affect his chances. He said it wouldn't.
That was our most interesting call of the night. Otherwise, the officers wrote up a report of a minor car accident and bought me Cuban food for dinner, and we spent the rest of the time speeding and slowing over Chicago's "speed humps" toward calls other officers got to first.
We talked about the officers' wives, one Chinese and the other Italian. We talked about traveling. They answered my questions about police cameras and where to find information about fire-related incidents. We talked about journalism - one of the guys worked in broadcast on the side. At dinner, we made fun of their fellow officers, one of whom accidentally went into the women's restroom, which was clearly labeled in not one but two languages as such.
For some reason we talked about British accents, and by the end of the night they were both using "well" (as in "That was well good") more or less correctly. It was fun hanging out with them.
After my ride-along was over, they drove me to a fire station to try to get me a report about a fire that had recently occurred. They had told me the street where it had happened was lined with buildings that hadn't passed code. I was hoping to write an article about this, but the quarter ran out before I could process a Freedom of Information Act request.
We didn't get the report, but it was so nice to have someone official backing me up when I went into the station. Afterward, they drove me back to my car and waved goodbye.
